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A  UTHOR: 


PAULSEN,  FRIEDRICH 


TITLE: 


A  SYSTEM  OF  ETHICS 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


DATE: 


1903  [c  1899] 


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System  der  Ethik.     English* 

Paulsen,  Friedrich,  1846-1908. 

A  system  of  ethics,  by  Friedrich  Paulsen  ...  ed.  and  tr. 
with  the  author's  sanction,  from  the  4th  rev.  and  enl.  ed.,  by 
Frank  Thilly.    New  York,  C.  Scribner's  sons,  46^   /9c73 

zyiii,723p.   28  cm. 


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1.  Ethics.       I.  ThUly,  Frank,  1865-         ed.  and  tr. 


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System  der  Ethik.  English. 


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Paulsen,  Friedrich,  18U6-1908.  A  system  of 
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A  SYSTEM  OF  ETHICS 


....  And  hence  virtue  would  be,  as  it  were,  the  health  and  beauty 
and  harmony  of  the  soul ;  vice,  however,  disease  and  ugliness  and 
weakness.  ^  lato. 

....  Accordingly,  the  highest  good  of  man  consists  in  the  exercise 
of  the  virtues  and  excellences  of  the  soul,  especially  of  the  highest 
and  most  perfect.  Aristotle. 

Virtue  is  nothing  but  action  in  accordance  with  one's  own  nature ; 
and  there  is  nothing  which  excels  it  in  dignity  and  worth. 

Spinoza. 

And  therefore  virtue  is  the  good  and  vice  the  evil  for  every  one. 

Shaftesbury. 


SYSTEM   OF   ETHICS 


BT 


PEIEDRICH  PAULSEN 

FBOPE8SOR  OP  FHILOSOFHT  IN  THE   UNIVERSITY  OP  BEBLm 


Etiiteti  anti  Ctanslateti 

WITH  THE  author's  SANCTION,  FROM  THE  FOURTH 
REVISED  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION 


BY 


FRANK    THILLY 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE   UNIYXRSITT 

OP  MISSOURI 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNERS   SONS 

1903 


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TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 


Copyrightf  1899^ 
Bt  Charles  Sckibne&'s  Sons. 


•         L      <      «  / 


•     (      r 


Op  all  the  treatises  on  ethics  that  have  appeared  in  recent 
years,  none  is,  in  my  opinion,  so  admirably  fitted  for  intro- 
ducing the  beginner  to  this  study  as  the  remarkable  work  of 
Professor  Paulsen  which  I  here  present  to  the  English-speak- 
ing public  in  their  native  tongue.  As  the  author  expressly 
declares,  the  book  was  not  written  for  philosophical  experts, 
but  for  all  those  who  are  interested  in  the  problems  of  prac- 
tical philosophy,  and  who  are  in  need  of  some  one  to  guide 
them  in  solving  the  same.  It  discusses  the  fundamental 
questions  of  ethics  in  a  manner  that  cannot  fail  to  attract  the 
student  and  encourage  him  to  reflect  upon  moral  matters, 
which  is,  after  all,  the  greatest  service  that  any  book  can 
hope  to  render  him.  Many  of  our  ethical  treatises  have  a 
tendency  to  repel  the  average  intelligent  reader  and  to  deaden 
instead  of  quickening  his  thought ;  they  make  him  feel  that 
the  subjects  under  discussion  have  absolutely  no  connection 
with  life,  at  least,  not  with  his  life ;  they  often  speak  to  him  of 
things  about  which  he  knows  nothing  and  cares  less,  in  lan- 
guage which  he  cannot  understand.  This  is  a  misfortune,  for 
if  any  science  has  a  message  to  deliver  to  the  people  of  our 
country  and  age,  it  is  certainly  the  science  of  conduct. 

Professor  Paulsen  divides  his  work  into  four  books.  The 
first  traces  the  historical  development  of  the  conceptions  of 
life  and  moral  philosophy  from  the  times  of  the  Greeks  down 
to  the  present,  and  is  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  fascinating 
surveys  of  the  subject  ever  written.     The  second  examines 


<  •  •     •   •  I 

i  C     •      k     >  . 


VI 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 


the  fundamental  questions  of  ethics  and  answers  them  in 
a  manner  indicating  the  author's  clearness  of  vision  and 
soundness  of  judgment.  The  third,  which  is  full  of  prac- 
tical wisdom,  applies  these  principles  to  our  daily  conduct 
and  defines  the  different  virtues  and  duties.  The  fourth 
book  is  sociological  and  political  in  its  nature,  and  deals 
with  the  "Forms  of  Social  Life."  The  healthy  common- 
sense  pervading  the  entire  work  and  its  freedom  from  exag- 
gerations cannot  but  win  the  admiration  of  the  reader. 

Owing  to  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  publishers  not  to  in- 
crease the  dimensions  of  this  volume  beyond  a  reasonable 
limit,  I  have  translated  only  the  first  three  of  the  books, 
leaving  out,  for  the  present,  the  "  Umriss  einer  Staats-  und 
Gesellschaftslehre. "  I  have  also  omitted  the  seventh  and 
eighth  sections  of  the  sixth  chapter  in  Book  IIL,  which  dis- 
cuss the  duel^  in  order  still  further  to  diminish  the  size  of 
the  translation,  and  because,  in  my  belief,  the  subject  does 
not  have  the  same  interest  for  us  Americans  as  for  the 
Germans. 

My  translation  is  from  the  fourth  German  edition  which 
has  been  revised  and  increased.  I  have  added  notes  and 
bibliographical  references  whenever  they  seemed  desirable; 
they  will  be  found  in  square  brackets. 

In  conclusion,  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  to  Pro- 
fessor Paulsen  my  sincere  thanks  for  the  encouragement  and 
help  he  has  given  me  during  the  progress  of  this  work. 


FRANK  THILLY. 


Columbia,  Mo.,  March,  1899. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 


TO   THE   AMERICAN   EDITION 


In  responding  to  the  request  of  my  friend  Frank  Thilly  to 
speed  this  book  on  its  journey,  I  feel  impelled,  first  of  all, 
to  express  to  him  my  hearty  thanks  for  his  kindness  in 
presenting  my  Ethics  to  his  fellow-countrymen  in  their 
native  tongue,  a  service  which  he  has  already  performed  for 
my  Introduction  to  Philosophy. 

From  my  earliest  youth  I  have  had  the  feeling  that  a 
people  closely  akin  to  us  dwelt  beyond  the  ocean.  This 
feeling  was,  perhaps,  first  aroused  by  the  fact  that  not  a  few 
of  the  companions  of  my  youth  had  found  a  new  home  on 
the  other  side ;  in  my  native  land,  Schleswig-Holstein,  from 
which  the  Anglo-Saxons  once  sailed  westward  over  the  sea, 
the  migration  to  the  West  still  continues.  Since  then  the 
years  have  woven  many  new  bonds  of  union.  And  so  it  is 
now  a  special  source  of  pleasure  to  me,  also,  as  an  author,  to 
come  into  closer  contact  with  the  great  nation  which  has 
shown  such  remarkable  energy  in  establishing  itself  in  the 
new  world. 

It  is  my  earnest  wish  that  this  book  may  also  contribute 
a  little  to  strengthen  the  ties  of  spiritual  fellowship  unit- 
ing the  two  kindred  peoples.  We  Germans  well  know,  and 
gratefully  confess,  that  no  nation  of  the  earth  more  deeply 
appreciates  and  more  thoroughly  understands  the  products  of 
German  thought  than  the  United  States  of  North  America. 

FRIEDRICH  PAULSEN. 

Berlin-Steglitz,  September  27,  1898. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  GERMAN  EDITION 


Ich  glaube  niclit  dass  ich  viel  eignes  neues  lehre, 

Noch  durch  meiu  Scherflein  Witz  den  Schatz  der  Weisheit  mehre. 

Doch  denk'  ich  von  der  Miih'  mir  zweierlei  Gewinn ; 

Einmal,  dass  ich  nun  selbst  an  Einsicht  weiter  bin ; 

Sodann,  dass  doch  dadurch  an  manchen  Mann  wird  kommen 

Manches,  wovon  er  sonst  gar  hatte  nichts  vernommen. 

Und  auch  der  dritte  Grund  scheint  wert  nicht  des  Gelachters : 

Dass,  wer  dies  Btlchlein  liest,  derweil  doch  liest  kein  schlechters. 

—  RiJCKERT. 


FROM  THE  PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND 

GERMAN  EDITION 


The  second  edition  of  this  work,  which  has  been  so  kindly 
received  by  a  large  circle  of  readers,  embraces,  in  the  main, 
the  same  contents  as  the  first ;  I  have,  however,  so  far  as  I 
was  able,  made  improvements  here  and  there.  The  second 
book,  especially,  has  been  worked  over ;  I  hope  that  the  fun- 
damental concepts  have  gained  somewhat  in  definiteness,  and 
that  the  entire  treatment  has  been  somewhat  rounded  out. 
Perhaps  this  will  make  it  a  little  easier  for  some  of  the 
critics  to  understand  the  conception  of  life  and  its  values 
on  which  my  system  is  based. 

This  new  edition,  however,  is  still  open  to  the  objection, 
which  has  been  repeatedly  urged  against  me,  that  the  treat- 
ment of  the  fundamental  questions  is  much  less  searching 
and  thorough,  while  the  questions  of  the  day  receive  more 
attention  than  they  deserve  in  a  philosophical  treatise.  I 
have  not  been  able  to  make  up  my  mind  to  enter  upon  a  more 
detailed  discussion  of  the  principles,  because  I  do  not  believe 
that  great  prolixity  in  these  matters  will  do  any  one  much 
good.  The  philosophers,  of  course,  have  long  ago  worked  out 
their  own  principles ;  to  the  readers,  however,  who  do  not  lay 
claim  to  this  title,  the  significance  and  fitness  of  the  funda- 
mental notions  will  be  proved  more  easily  by  the  ability  of  the 
latter  to  explain  particular  cases  and  to  solve  concrete  prob- 
lems. I  have  been  equally  unwilling  to  ignore  the  questions 
which  are  moving  our  age ;  the  books  that  have  nothing  to 
say  to  their  times,  and  therefore  fill  their  pages  with  un- 


X        FROM   THE   PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION 

timely  logical  quibbles,  or  with  endless  historical-critical 
discussions,  are  plentiful  enough  as  it  is,  and  there  has,  thus 
far,  never  been  a  lack  of  tiresome  books  in  Germany.  There 
are  books  that  are  timeless  because  they  are  written  for  all 
times;  but  there  are  also  timeless  books  which  are  written 
for  no  time.  This  book  does  not  belong  to  the  first  class, 
nor  would  it  like  to  belong  to  the  second. 

And  now  that  I  have  begun  to  make  confessions,  let  me 
confess  further  that  this  book  was  not  written  for  philoso- 
phers at  all;  God  forbid  that  I  should  presume  to  think 
for  people  who  are  already  overburdened  with  thoughts.  I 
had  in  mind  readers  who  have,  in  some  way  or  other,  been 
stimulated  to  meditate  upon  the  problems  of  life,  and  are 
looking  for  some  one  to  guide  them,  or,  if  that  sounds  too 
presumptuous,  for  some  one  to  discuss  these  questions  with 
them.  Should  any  such  take  up  this  book  and  not  lay  it  aside 
disappointed,  the  author's  ambition  will  have  been  thoroughly 
realized.  Besides,  I  do  not  believe  that  a  new  system  of  moral 
philosophy  is  either  necessary  or  possible ;  the  great  construc- 
tive principles  have  already  been  so  thoroughly  developed  by 
Greek  philosophy  that  they  are,  in  the  main,  satisfactory  even 
to-day.  To  bring  the  old  truth  into  living  touch  with  the  ques- 
tions which  preoccupy  our  age,  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  most 
important  function  of  a  modern  ethics.  Nor  do  I  believe 
that  I  am  mistaken  in  the  assumption  that  this  view  is  some- 
what widespread  in  our  times.  Perhaps  there  has  never  been 
so  little  disagreement  concerning  the  problem  and  principles 
of  moral  philosophy  since  the  days  of  Christian  Wolff  as 
exists  at  present. 

Let  me  here  briefly  outline  the  conception  towards  which 
the  thought  of  the  age  seems  to  be  tending;  I  call  it  the 
teleological  view.  It  is  limited  and  defined  by  a  double  anti- 
thesis. On  the  one  side,  by  hedonistic  utilitarianism,  which 
teaches  that  pleasure  is  the  thing  of  absolute  worth,  to  which 
virtue  and  morality  are  related  as  means.     In  opposition  to 


FROM  THE  PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION       xi 

this,  teleological  ethics  contends  that  not  the  feeling  of 
pleasure,  but  the  objective  content  of  life  itself,  which  is 
experienced  with  pleasure,  is  the  thing  of  worth.  Pleasure 
is  the  form  in  which  the  subject  becomes  immediately  aware 
of  the  object  and  its  value.  Intuitionalistic  formalism  is  the 
other  antithesis.  This  regards  the  observance  of  a  system 
of  a  priori  rules,  of  the  moral  laws,  as  the  thing  of  absolute 
worth.  In  opposition  to  this,  teleological  ethics  contends 
that  the  thing  of  absolute  worth  is  not  the  observance  of 
the  moral  laws,  but  the  substance  which  is  embraced  in 
these  formulae,  the  human  historical  life  which  fills  the 
outline  with  an  infinite  wealth  of  manifold  concrete  forms ; 
that  the  moral  laws  exist  for  the  sake  of  life,  not  life  for 
the  sake  of  the  moral  laws. 

This  is  the  form  which  Aristotle,  the  founder  of  ethics  as 
a  systematic  science,  originally  gave  to  it.  This  conception 
controlled  the  entire  Greek  thought,  and  modern  ethics  too 
adhered  to  it,  until  it  was  overthrown  by  Kant's  great  reaction 
in  favor  of  a  formalistic  intuitionalism.  Teleological  ethics, 
however,  at  once  found  an  eloquent  and  warm  defender  against 
formal  moralism  in  Schiller,  and  in  a  certain  sense  Specula- 
tive Philosophy  also  returned  to  the  old  view.  At  present 
this  science  is  again  turning  into  the  old  channels  under  the 
influence  of  the  modern  biological  conceptions. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


Nature  and  Function  of  Ethics 

1.  Definition  (1)  —  2.  Position  in  the  System  of  Sciences  (1)— 3. 
Function  (4)  — 4.  Method  (6)  —  5.  Moral  Law  and  Natural 
Law  (13)  — 6.  Concept  of  Perfection  (17)  — 7.  In  what  Sense 
Universal  Validity  may  be  Predicated  of  Morality  (19)  —  8. 
Practical  Value  of  Ethics  (25). 


Page 
1 


BOOK  I 

OUTLINE  OF  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  CONCEPTIONS  OF  LIFE  AND 

MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

CHAPTER  I 

The    Conception    of    Life    and   Moral    Philosophy    among 
THE  Greeks ^^ 

1.  The  Greek  People's  Conception  of  the  Value  of  Life  (35) — 
2.  Socrates  (39)  — 3.  Plato  (41)  — 4.  Aristotle  (48)  — 5.  Stoics 
(53)  _  6.  Epicureans  (56) — 7.  Common  Characteristics  of  Greek 
Ethics  (58). 


CHAPTER  n 

The  Christian  Conception  of  Life 

1.  Christianity  is  Supernaturalistic  (65)  —  2.  Its  Contempt  for  Learn- 
ing (67)  —  3.  for  the  Natural  Virtues  (68)  —  4.  for  Courage  (69) 

—  5.  for  Justice  (71)  — 6.  Its  Relation  to  the  State  (72)  —  7.  to 
Enjoyment  and  Art  (74)  —  8.  to  Wealth  (77)  —  9.  to  Honor  (78) 

—  10.  Mercy,  the  Christian  Virtue  (81)  — 11.  Christianity  and 


65 


xiv 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Paok 


98 


Family-Life  (84) -12.  The  Eternal  Life  (87)- 13.  The  Liberal- 
istic  Conception  of  Christianity  (89). 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Conversion  of  the  Olp  Wokld  to  Christianitt  .     .     . 

X  The  Old  World's  Opinion  of  Christianity  (98) -2.  Cause  of  the 
Change :  DecUne  of  Ancient  Morality  in  the  Roman  Lmp.re  (100) 
_3  The  Moral  Self-consciousness  of  the  Imperial  Period  :  tpic- 
tetu^,  Marcus  AureUus,  Neo-Platonism  (106) -4  Craving  for 
a  Edigiou  of  Redemption  (110) -5.  Supenonty  of  Chn  tian  ty 
(112)-6.  Analogous  Development  in  the  Hindoo  World  (113). 


CHAPTER  IV 
The  Middle  Ages  and  their  Conception  of  Life      ....  116 
1    The  Conversion  of  the   Germanic  Nations  (116) -2    Mood  a^d 
Mode    of    Life   (118)  -  3.  The    ^l-^y   (11  )  -  ^   ,f '^  f  "^ 
Necessity  on  Part  of  the  Church  to  Assimilate  the  World  (121). 

CHAPTER  V 

T  ...  126 

The  Modern  Conception  of  Life 

1.  Characteristics  of  the  Modem  Era  (126)  "  2;^I^«"f  "sl^ - 
_  3.  Reformation  (129)  -  4.  The  Love  of  K°owWg^  (1«'>  " 
5.  Francis  Bacon  and  his  Dream  of  the  Future  (137)-  6-  R-  De^ 
clrtes  and  his  Programme  of  Civilization  (140)  -  7.  The  Modern 
Science  of  the  Sta.. :  Thomas  Hobbes  (143)  -  8.  Le^n.z  (144^- 
9.  The  Self-satisfaction  of  the  Modern  Era  (115)-  10-  The 
Nineteenth  Century:  Pessimism,  NieUscheanism  (147)  -  11. 
Relation  to  Christianity  (155). 


CHAPTER  VI 

Medieval  and  Modern  Moral  Philosophy 

1.  Theological  Moral  Philosophy  (169)- 2.  Catholic  Moral  Theology 
(172) -3.  Modern  Moral    Philosophy;  Thomas  Hobbes  (19)- 
4.  Spinoza  (181) -5.  Shaftesbury  (185)  -  6.  Hume  Bentham 
Mill,  Spencer  (189)  -  7.  Leibniz,  Wolff  (193)  -  8   Kant    194 
_  ;.  Goethe,  Schiller  (201)  -  10.  Speculative  Philosophy  (203) 
_  11.  Schleiermacher  (205)  -  12.  Herbart  (208)  -  IS.  Scho- 
penhauer  (209). 


169 


\ 


'I 

,  Jm 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


BOOK  II 


XV 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTS  AND   QUESTIONS  OF  PRINCIPLE 


Metaphysical  and  Psychological  Introduction 


Pack 

.  219 


CHAPTER  I 
Good  and  Bad:  Teleological  and  Formalistic  Conceptions   .  222 

1 .  Possible  Conceptions  (222)  —  2.  The  Teleological  Conception  (224) 

—  3.  Subjective-formal  and  Objective-material  Judgment  (226)  — 
4.  The  End  Justifies  the  Means  (233)  —  5.  The  Importance  of 
the  Particular  Act  (240)  —  6.  Provisional  Repudiation  of  Egoism 
(243)  —  7.  Summary  (248). 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Highest  Good  :  Hedonistic  and  Energistic  Conceptions  .  251 

1.  Critique  of  Hedonism  :  Pleasure  not  the  End  of  Action  (251)  —  2. 
A  Modified  Form  of  the  Hedonistic  Theory  (258)  —  3.  Signifi- 
cance of  Pleasure  from  the  Biological  Standpoint  (264)  —  4. 
Pleasure  not  the  Criterion  of  Judgments  of  Value  (268)  —  5. 
Positive  Definition  of  the  Highest  Good  (270)  —  6.  Histoid 
ical  Confirmation  (273)  —  7.  Further  Remarks  (275)  —  8. 
An  Objection  (283). 

CHAPTER  III 
Pessimism 287 

1.  Pessimism  as  a  Mood  and  a  Theory  (287)  —  2.  Hedonistic  Argu- 
ment (289)— 3.  Moralistic  Argument  (297)  — 4.  The  Historical- 
Philosophical  Argument  in  the  Hedonistic  Sense  (308)  —  5.  in 
the  Moralistic  Sense  (314)  —  6.  Summary  (318). 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Evil,  the  Bad,  and  Theodicy 321 

1.  Theodicy  (321)  — 2.  Physical  Evil  (322)  —  3.  Moral  Evil  (325) 

—  4.  Consequences  (332)  —  5.  Death  (335). 

CHAPTER  V 
Duty  and  Conscience 340 

1.  Origin  of  the  Feeling  of  Duty  (340)  —  2.  Relation  between  Duty 
and  Inclination  (346)  —  3.  Critique  of  the  Kantian  View  (350) 


XVI 


TABLE  OF   CONTENTS 


Page 


4.  Further  Errors  of  the  A-prioristic-intuitionalistic  Moral  Phil- 
osophy (355)  — 5.  Conscience  (363)— 6.  Individualization  of 
Conscience  (368)  —  7.  Moral  Nihilism  (373)  — 8.  The  Popular 
Usage  of  Language  (377). 

CHAPTER  VI 
Egoism  and  Altruism 379 

1.  No  Absolute  Opposition  (379)  —  2.  The  Effects  of  so-called  Egoistic 
and  Altruistic  Acts  (383)  —3.  and  their  Motives  Overlap  (386) 
—  4.  Our  Judgment  of  Egoistic  and  Altruistic  Acts  (391)  — 5. 
Relation  to  the   Evolutionistic  Theory  (394). 

CHAPTER  VII 
Virtue  and  Happiness *^^ 

1.  Effect  of  Conduct  on  Welfare  (400)— 2.  Effect  of  Welfare  on 
Character  (407). 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Relation  of  Morality  to  Reljgion 415 

1.  Historical  Connection,  its  Causes  and  Effects  (415)  — 2.  Neces- 
sary Inner  Connection  (421)— 3.  Relation  between  Religion  and 
Science  (425)  —4.  Cause  of  Unbelief  (433)  — 5.  The  BeUef  in 
Immortality  (439)  —  6.  Objections  (446). 

CHAPTER  IX 

The  Freedom  of  the  Will ^^2 

1.  Historical  Orientation  (452)  —  2.  Presentation  of  the  Facts  (457)  ^ 
3.  Responsibility  (460)  —  4.  The  True  Meaning  of  Human  Free- 
dom (467). 


BOOK  III 

THE  DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

CHAPTER  I 
Virtues  and  Vices  in  General 


475 


CHAPTER  II 

The   Education  of   the   Will  and  the  Discipline  of   the 

Feelings,  or  Self-Control ^^3 

1.  Self-control  (483)  —  2.  Temperance ;  Asceticism  (485)  —  3.  Mod- 
esty (491)  — 4.  Courage  (495)  —  5.  Independence,  Perseverance, 
Patience  (498)  —  6.  Equanimity  (500)  —  7.  Wisdom  (503). 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 


XVII 


CHAPTER  m 

Page 

Bodily  Life 505 

1.  Its    Purpose     (505)  —  2.    Nourishment;     Drunkenness    (506)  — 

3.  Domicile,  Clothing  (515)  —4.  Play  and  Work  (519). 

CHAPTER  IV 

Economic  Life ^29 

1.  Teleological  Necessity  of  the  Calling  (529)  —  2.  Duty  to  the  Com- 
munity (533)  — 3.  Avarice  and  Prodigality  (536)  —  4.  Poverty 
and  Wealth  (540). 

CHAPTER  V 

Spiritual  Life  and  Culture 543 

1.  Nature  and  Import  of  Knowledge  (543)  — 2.  Culture,  Super-cul- 
ture, Half-culture  (547)  —  3.  Nature  and  Import  of  Art  (556)  — 

4.  Present  Position  of  Art  (559). 

CHAPTER  VI 

Honor  and  the  Love  of  Honor 569 

1.  Nature  of  Honor  (569)  —  2.  Its  Significance  for  Moral  Develop- 
ment (571)  — 3.  The  Love  of  Honor  as  Pride  (573)  — 4.  The 
Love  of  Honor  as  Humility  (576)  — 5.  Self-confidence  and  Self- 
knowledge  (578)  — 6.  Modesty  (581). 

CHAPTER  VII 

Suicide 584 

1.  The  Facts  (584)  —  2.  How  we  Judge  the  Facts  (586)  —  3.  The 
Causes  (590). 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Compassion  and  Benevolence 592 

1.  Compassion  (592)  —  2.  Benevolence  (599). 

CHAPTER  IX 

Justice 599 

1.  Nature  and  Natural  Foundation  of  «Tustice  (599)  —  2.  Its  Signi- 
ficance (602)  —  3.  Need  of  a  Positive  Legal  Order  (603)  — 
4.  Punishment  and  the  Right  of  Punishment  (606)  —  5.  Duty  to 


xviii 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Paob 


Defend  the  Eights  of  Other.  «.d  of  ^^\^''^\-\^J^^^''^''^ 
and  Forgiveness  (616) -7.  The  Principle  of  B.ghW  (624) -8 
"congruly  between  Law  and  Morality;  Necessary  Wrongs  (627) 
_9.  The  Law  Falls  short  of  the  Demands  of  MoraUty  (633). 

CHAPTER  X 

Love  OF  Neighbor '    '..      «-,x 

1.  Definition  and  Limitations  of  the  Duty  (638) -2    Almsgmng  (JU) 

_3.  Selfishness  (648)-4.  Significance  of  Love  "^  ^^ghbor 
(652) -5.  Gratitude  (655) -6.  Love  of  Home,  of  Country,  of 
Humanity  (656). 

CHAPTER  XI 


638 


664 


iTegrve'  Aspect':  the  Lie'(6'64)'-2  Why  Conde>nned  (666)- 
3.%alum„y,  Flattery,  Hypocrisy  Perjury  (669) -4  Lie  of 
Necessity  (672)-5.  Why  this  Rigorism  ^  (681)-6.  l-osiUve 
Snlct  Veracity  in  Relation  to  the  Individual  (685) -7.  The 
pE  Co—i^tion  of  the  Truth  f  «)-«;Jt^  ^^^^ 
Truths  are  Persecuted  (690)  —  9.  In  how  far  this  is  Necessary 
i^:^So.  Is  the  Destruction  of  Error  under  aU  Circumstances 

a  Duty?  (698). 


INDEX 


713 


INTRODUCTION  — NATURE    AND    FUNCTION 

OF  ETHICS 

1.  Ethics  is,  according  to  the  Greek  signification  of  the 
term,  a  science  of  customs  or  morals  QSitten). 

There  are  two  forms  of  a  scientific  treatment  of  morals  :  the 
historical-anthropological  and  the  practical.  The  first  we 
find,  for  example,  in  Herodotus  and  in  Herbert  Spencer's 
Descriptive  Sociology/,  It  investigates  and  describes  the  cus- 
toms of  different  peoples  and  times ;  we  might  call  it  etho- 
graphy.  The  second  inquires  into  the  worth  of  human  customs 
and  modes  of  behavior ;  its  object  is  to  guide  us  in  the  proper 
conduct  of  life.  The  Greeks  applied  the  term  ethics  to  inves- 
tigations of  the  latter  kind.  It  was  Aristotle  who  gave  to 
this  science  its  name  and  systematic  form.  —  The  following 
introductory  remarks  will  endeavor  to  define  provisionally  the 

nature  of  such  a  science. 

2.  All  scientific  discussions  may  be  divided  into  two  classes : 
theoretical  and  practical,  theories  and  technologies,  sciences 
proper  and  arts.  The  former  aim  at  knowledge,  the  latter 
seek  to  control  things  by  human  action,  they  tell  us  how  to 
make  the  world  subservient  to  our  purposes. 

According  to  the  above  definition,  ethics  belongs  to  the 
practical  sciences ;  its  function  is  to  show  how  human  life  as 
such  must  be  fashioned  to  realize  its  purpose  or  end.  Conse- 
quently, it  stands  at  the  head  of  the  practical  sciences,  em- 
bracing them  all  in  a  certain  measure,  for  all  arts  ultimately 
serve  a  common  purpose  :  the  perfection  of  human  life.  This 
is  as  true  of  the  art  of  shipbuilding  and  commerce  as  of  the 
art  of  education  and  government.     Hence,  the  corresponding 


1 


ti 


2  INTRODUCTIOX 

arts  are  subordinated  to  ethics,  the  theory  of  the  art  of  life, 
or  included  as  its  parts. 

All  practical  sciences  are  based  on  theories.     They  are 
merely  the  application  of  theoretical  truths  to  the  solution 
of  practical  problems.    The  theoretical  science  to  which  ethics 
bears  this  relation  is  the  science  of  man,  anthropology  and 
jjsijcliology.     Presupposing  a  knowledge  of  human  nature  and 
the  conditions  of  human  life,  ethics  undertakes  to  answer  the 
question :  What  forms  of  social  life  and  what  modes  of  indi- 
vidual conduct  are  favorable  or  unfavorable  to  the  perfection 
of  human   nature?     A   comparison   with   another  practical 
science  will  make  the  relation  clear.     The  function  of  medi- 
cine is  to  teach  men  the  physician's  art ;  and  the  object  of  this 
art  is  to  aid  the  body  in  reaching  its  perfect  development,  to 
bring  about  favorable   conditions,  to   ward  off   dangers,  to 
remove  disturbances ;  dietetics  and  therapeutics  together  per- 
form this  function.     Physical  anthropology  forms  the  theoret- 
ical basis  of  medicine.     We  may,  therefore,  say  :  Ethics  bears 
the    same   relation  to   general  anthropology   as   medicine   to 
physical  anthropology.     Based  on  the  knowledge  of  corporeal 
nature,  medicine  instructs  us  to  solve  the  problems  of  cor- 
poreal life,  to  the  end  that  the  body  may  perform  all  its  func- 
tions in  a  healthy  manner  during  its  natural  existence  ;  while 
ethics,  basing  itself  on  the  knowledge  of  human  nature  in 
general,  especially  of  its  spiritual  and  social  side,  aims  to 
solve  all  the  problems  of  life  so  that  it  may  reach  its  fullest, 
most  beautiful,  and  most  perfect  development.     We  might, 
therefore,  call  ethics  universal  dietetics,  to  which  medicine 
and  all  the  other  technologies,  like  pedagogy,  politics,  etc., 
are  related  as  special  parts,  or  as  auxiliary  sciences.     With 
this  view  the  founder  of  systematic  moral  philosophy,  Aris- 
totle, wholly  agrees. 

A  remark  will  not  be  out  of  place  here.  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  the  arts  are  not  really  new,  independent  sciences.  Science 
deals  with  the  nature  of  things.     The  fact  that  objects  may 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


3 


be  modified  by  our  action  does  not  constitute  a  special  phase 
of  their  nature.  Science  might,  therefore,  confine  itself  to 
calling  attention  to  this  in  occasional  interspersed  remarks ; 
physics  might,  for  example,  in  discussing  the  subject  of  steam, 
add  the  following  note  :  Such  and  such  particular  properties 
of  gases  enable  us  to  utilize  them  as  motors.  The  technolo- 
gies would  thus  be  inserted  into  the  theories  as  corollaries. 

If  human  beings  were  essentially  theoretical  beings,  they 
might,  perhaps,  be  satisfied  with  such  a  procedure.  But  such 
is  not  the  case ;  they  are,  rather,  pre-eminently  practical  or 
volitional  beings.  The  practical  problems  are  earlier  and  more 
important  than  the  theoretical  problems.  The  sciences,  we 
may  say,  without  going  far  amiss,  have  been  invented  to  solve 
problems;  knowledge  is,  at  least  in  its  first  beginnings,  a 
means  to  practical  ends.  Thus,  anatomy  and  physiology  are 
means  to  the  art  of  healing ;  geometry,  as  the  name  indicates, 
a  means  to  the  surveyor's  art.  Similarly,  philosophy,  or 
the  universal  theoretical  science,  owes  its  origin  to  the  ques- 
tion concerning  the  meaning  and  object  of  life.  Yes,  we  may 
go  still  farther  and  say  :  \The  ultimate  motive  impelling  men 
to  meditate  upon  the  nature  of  the  universe  will  always  be  the 
desire  to  reach  some  conclusion  concerning  the  meaning,  the 
source,  and  the  goal  of  their  own  lives.  The  origin  and  end 
of  all  philosophy  is  consequently  to  be  sought  in  ethics. 

The  priority  of  the  practical  sciences  is  shown  in  a  remark- 
able way  by  the  form  which  scientific  instruction  has  assumed 
on  its  highest  stage.  Our  university  sciences  are  absolutely 
governed  by  practical  ends.  The  medical  sciences  do  not 
really  form  a  systematic  science ;  they  are  united  by  a  prac- 
tical aim :  the  medical  faculty  is  a  technical  training  school 
for  physicians.  It  draws  all  such  theoretical  sciences  into  the 
sphere  of  its  instruction  as  it  regards  essential  and  useful  to 
the  technical  training  of  its  students.  In  this  way,  physiology 
and  anatomy,  which,  in  a  classification  based  on  purely  theo- 
retical  principles,  would,  of   course,  be   grouped  under  the 


4  INTRODUCTION 

natural  sciences,  under  the  title  biology,  came  into  the  faculty 
of  medicine.  The  same  is  true  of  jurisprudence  and  theology. 
Neither  of  these  is  a  special,  independent  science  ;  the  fac- 
ulties of  law  and  theology  are  technical  training  schools,  the 
former  for  judges  and  officials,  the  latter  for  preachers  and 
spiritual  advisers  ;  and  whatever  knowledge  is  required  by  the 
members  of  these  professions,  they  draw  upon  and  make  sub- 
servient to  their  goal.  A  purely  theoretical  classification  of 
the  sciences  would  place  all  these  subjects  either  under  the 
head  of  history  or  philosophy.  The  question  as  to  what  was 
or  is  the  law  in  any  particular  country  belongs  to  history,  as 
well  as  the  question  concerning  the  essence  or  the  historical 
development  of  a  particular  religion.  The  question,  however, 
concerning  the  nature  of  law  in  general  and  its  significance  for 
human  conduct  belongs  to  practical  philosophy ;  the  question 
concerning  the  nature  of  God  and  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse, to  metaphysics.  —  We  have  here  an  illustration  of  the 
truth  that  knowledge  exists  for  the  sake  of  life,  not  life  for 
the  sake  of  knowledge. 

3.  Let  me  add  a  few  further  statements  concerning  the 
function  and  method  of  ethics. 

It  has  a  double  function  to  perform  :  to  determine  the  end 
of  life,  or  the  highest  good,  and  to  point  out  the  way,  or  the 
means,  of  realizing  it. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  doctrine  of  goods  ( G-uterlehre)  to 
establish  the  goal,  or  the  highest  good.  It  will,  to  forestall 
the  contents  of  a  subsequent  chapter,  regard  as  the  highest 
good,  stating  it  in  a  general  formula,  a  perfect  life,  that  is,  a 
life  leading  to  the  complete  development  of  the  bodily  and 
mental  powers  and  to  their  full  exercise  in  all  the  spheres  of 
human  existence,  in  close  communion  with  other  closely 
related  persons,  and  fully  participating  in  the  historical  and 
spiritual  life  of  society  at  large.  The  term  ivelfare  (  Wohl- 
fahrt)  may  also  be  employed  to  designate  this  goal,  —  which 
would  suggest  the  subjective  element  involved  in  it,  or  the 


I-     H 


NATURE   AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS  O 

fact  that  such  a  life  yields  satisfaction  {WohlgefuliT).  Here, 
however,  we  must  guard  against  the  misconception  that  this 
feeling  of  satisfaction  or  pleasure  is  what  gives  life  its  real 
worth°  The  feeling  is  not  the  good,  but  the  form  in  which 
the  good  is  known  and  enjoyed  by  the  subject. 

The  other  function  of  ethics  is  to  show  by  what  inner  quali- 
ties and  modes  of  conduct  the  highest  good,  or  the  perfect 
life,  is  attained  and  realized.  This  problem  is  solved  in  the 
doctrine  of  virtues  and  the  doctrine  of  duties  {Tugend-  und 
Fflichtenlehre),  The  doctrine  of  duties  describes  in  general 
formulae  how  we  must  conduct  ourselves  in  order  successfully 
to  solve  the  problems  of  life,  that  is,  attain  to  perfection. 
The  doctrine  of  duties  sets  forth  how  we  must  fashion  the 
character,  or  the  will,  in  order  to  realize  that  goal :  it  makes 
clear  to  us  that  prudence,  courage,  justice,  veracity,  are  quali- 
ties which  enable  us  correctly  to  solve  the  problems  of  life, 
while  their  opposites,  thoughtlessness,  cowardice,  and  pleasure- 
seeking,  inconsiderate  selfishness  and  base  mendacity,  hinder 
the  realization  of  the  perfect  life. 

Here,  however,  we  must  at  once  call  attention  to  an  im- 
portant fact.  The  means  employed  to  realize  the  perfect  life 
are  not  merely  external,  technical  means,  having  no  inde- 
pendent value,  but  they  are  at  the  same  time  parts  of  its  con- 
tent. Just  as  the  means  of  dietetics,  work  and  exercise,  rest 
and  sleep,  as  functions  of  life,  at  the  same  time  form  constit- 
uents  of  bodily  life,  so  the  virtues  and  their  exercise  form 
the  contents  of  the  perfect  life.  Or,  to  use  a  different  illus- 
tration: Each  part  in  a  good  poem  is  a  means  of  expressing 
and  unfolding  the  whole,  otherwise  it  would  be  a  superfluous 
episode ;  and,  conversely,  every  means  also  necessarily  forms 
a  part  of  the  poem  itself  and  as  such  possesses  its  own  poetic 
value.  So,  too,  everything  in  moral  life  is  both  a  means  and 
a  part  of  the  end,  something  that  exists  for  its  own  sake  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole.  The  virtues  have  absolute  worth 
as  phases  of  the  perfect  man,  but  they  are  at  the  same  time 


/i 


\ 


Mfi 


6 


TNTROnUCTIOX 


ii 


!l] 


'i  H 


11 


valuable  as  means,  in  so  far  as  the  perfect  life  is  realized 
through  them.  In  both  cases,  however,  a  difference  may  be 
noted.  Not  all  the  parts  of  a  work  of  art  have  the  same 
value  when  compared  with  the  purpose  underlying  it,  nor  are 
the  different  virtues  equally  important  as  means  of  realizing 
the  perfect  life.  Similarly,  the  different  duties  may  be  graded 
according  to  their  importance. 

4.  Let  us  now  inquire  into  the  method  of  ethics.  What  is 
the  source  of  its  knowledge  ?  How  does  it  prove  the  truth  of 
its  propositions  ? 

It  is  customary  to  distinguish  between  empirical  and  ra- 
tional knowledge.  The  latter,  of  which  mathematics  is  the 
prototype,  deduces  propositions  from  definitions  and  axioms, 
and  demonstrates  them  logically ;  that  is,  it  shows  that  they 
follow  as  necessary  consequences  from  the  principles.  Em- 
pirical sciences,  on  the  other  hand,  like  physics  and  chemistry, 
observe  facts  and  reduce  them  to  general  formulae,  which 
aim  to  express  the  uniformity  in  the  behavior  of  things ; 
such  formulae  we  call  causal  laws.  The  proof  of  the  truth  of 
these  propositions  does  not  consist  in  showing  their  logical 
connection  with  certain  presupposed  definitions,  but  in  point- 
ing out  that  they  adequately  express  an  observed  causal 
connection. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  an  indisputable  fact  that  ethics  resem- 
bles the  natural  sciences,  rather  than  mathematics,  in  its 
method.  It  does  not  deduce  and  demonstrate  propositions 
from  concepts,  but  discovers  the  relations  which  exist  be- 
tween facts,  and  which  may  be  established  by  experience. 
Such  and  such  a  mode  of  conduct  has  such  and  such  an 
effect ;  that  is  the  general  form  of  its  argument.  Or,  to  state 
it  in  the  converted  form  in  which  the  causal  connections  are 
expressed  in  all  practical  or  technical  sciences  :  In  order  to 
produce  or  prevent  such  and  such  results,  such  and  such 
means  are  necessary.  Quod  in  contemplatione  instar  causae^ 
id  in  operatione  instar  regulae^  says  Bacon ;  the  causal  law 


t  *& 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS  7 

becomes  a  practical  rule.  But  the  correctness  of  the  rule  is 
proved  by  the  causal  connection  ;  and  causal  connections  are 
ascertained  by  experience  alone.  [Experience  proves  that 
cleanliness,  exercise,  fresh  air,  are  means  of  preservmg 
health  So,  too,  experience  proves  that  prudent  and  rational 
conduct,  a  regular  vocation,  a  well-ordered  family  life,  are 
conducive  to  life  ;  and  that  indolence,  shiftlessness,  dis- 
honesty,  and  malice  have  the  tendency  to  make  life  miser- 
able and  to  destroy  it. 

The  rationalistic  view  denies  to  ethics  its  empirical  char- 
acter.     It  claims  that  propositions  of  morals  are  neither  cap- 
able nor  in  need  of  empirical  proof.     It  regards  them  as  the 
expressions   of  an  innate  faculty,   conscience,  or  practical 
reason,  which  judges  and  legislates  a  priori.    It  asserts  that 
everybody  knows  what  is  right  or  wrong  without  any  expe- 
rience.    Experience  decides  what  is  advantageous  or  disad- 
vantageous in  its  effects,  but  everybody  knows  before   all 
experience  what  is  good  or  bad,  and  no  experience  of  what 
human  beings  really  do  or  what  may  be  the  actual  effects  of 
their  action  can  place  in  doubt  or  correct  this  immediate 
knowledge  of  what  they  ought  to  do. 
"^    Our  answer  is :   It  is  indeed  true  that  mankind  did  not 
await  the  coming  of  moral  philosophy  in  order  to  distinguish 
between  good  and  bad.  [  Morality  is  older  than  moral  philos- 
ophy M^  there  could  be  no  moral  philosophy  without  morality 
as  its  ^presupposition.    It  arises  as  the  reflection  on  an  exist- 
ing positive  morality,  which  governs  life  and  judgment,  and 
which  is  not  destroyed  or  made  superfluous  by  its  appearance. 
It  is  also  true  that  something  like  an  inner  voice  speaks  to 
the  individual :  You  ought  to  do  this,  you  must  not  do  that ! 
and  that  too  without  any  reasons,  in  the  form  of  an  uncon- 
ditional imperative.      This  inner  voice  we  call  conscience. 
We  shall  recur  to  the  anthropological  explanation  and  teleo- 
logical  interpretation  of  these  things  later  on.      Here,  how- 
ever, I  should  like  to  show  that  it  does  not  follow  from  this 


^;^.        . 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


9 


i     1 


\ 


that  moral  philosophy  must  be  an  a-prioriBtic  or  rational 
science.  Let  the  science  of  dietetics  again  serve  as  an  illus- 
tration to  explain  our  meaning. 

What  was  said  of  the  moral  conduct  of  life  may  also  be 
applied  to  bodily  life.  Just  as  men  did  not  await  the  coming 
of  moral  philosophy  before  distinguishing  between  good  and 
bad,  they  did  not  wait  for  the  appearance  of  the  science  of 
dietetics  in  order  to  distinguish  between  the  wholesome  and 
the  unwholesome.  Long  before  medicine  or  any  science 
existed,  hungry  men  ate,  the  thirsty  quenched  their  thirst, 
and  the  shivering  covered  themselves  with  skins.  The  ques- 
tion :  Why  do  they  do  this,  why  is  bread  good  for  the  hungry, 
and  water  for  the  thirsty  ?  would  have  seemed  as  strange  to 
them  as  the  question  :  Why  is  stealing  wrong  ?  seems  to  our 
schoolboys.  It  is  self-evident ;  no  other  reason  can  be  given 
for  it.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  scientific  investigation 
begins  by  regarding  everything  that  has  previously  been 
accepted  as  self-evident,  as  a  problem.  After  men  had  lived 
for  untold  ages  according  to  the  absolute  imperatives  of  a 
naturalistic  dietetics  and  an  equally  naturalistic  therapeutics, 
which  continue  even  to  this  day  in  the  prescriptions  or  abso- 
lute imperatives  of  popular  dietetics  and  medicine,  what  we 
call  scientific  medicine  arose.  Slowly  and  gradually,  by 
means  of  observation  and  experiment,  we  have  come  to  un- 
derstand the  organization  of  the  body  and  its  relation  to  the 
external  conditions  of  life,  and  have  thus  been  gradually  en- 
abled to  prove  the  appropriateness  of  methods  and  cures 
which  have  long  been  practised,  and  to  eliminate  useless  or 
harmful  ones,  and  to  employ  new  ones  in  their  stead. 

Moral  philosophy  occupies  a  similar  position.  It,  too,  is 
confronted  with  a  naturalistic,  unscientific,  traditional  moral- 
ity. Just  as  bodily  life  was  originally  governed  by  instincts 
and  blind  habits,  without  physiology,  so  the  entire  human 
life,  especially  social  life,  was  originally  governed  without 
science,  by  a  kind  of  moral  instincts.     These  moral  instincts 


of  peoples  are  called  customs  (^Sitten),  I  employ  this  term 
to  designate  all  those  obligatory  habits  and  forms  of  life,  all 
those  customs  and  laws,  which  uniformly  govern  the  life  of 
every  member  of  a  community.  Like  the  dietetic  rules,  these 
customs  appear  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  in  the 
form  of  absolute  commands,  which  assign  no  reason  for  their 
validity.  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  rob,  or  defraud  a  member  of  thy 
tribe,  —  so  conscience  speaks,  without  grounds  and  conditions; 
to  do  so  is  bad :  that  is  a  self-evident  truth,  just  like  the  truth 
that  fire  burns,  and  bread  satisfies  hunger. 

Is  this  truth  really  incapable  of  proof,  can  moral  philosophy 
do  nothing  but  collect  and  arrange  these  absolute  commands 
and  prohibitions  ?    To  say  so  is  to  deprive  it  of  its  character 
as  a  science,  for  science  does  not  consist  in  taking  inventories, 
but  in  the  discovery  and  proof  of  truths.     But  such  is  not  the 
case.     The  truths  of  popular  morality  themselves  suggest  a 
different  answer ;  they  also  appear  in  another  form,  namely 
in  the  form  of  proverbs:    Pride  goeth  before  a  fall;   Lies 
are  short-lived ;  Honesty  is  the  best  policy  ;  A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand.     Here  the  imperative  appears  in 
the  form  of  an  assertion,  one  in  which  the  reason  is  implied : 
Do  not  lie,  for  lies  are  short-lived;  Do  not  cheat,  for  ill-gotten 
gains  do  not  prosper.     And  this  suggests  to  us  the  real  func- 
tion of  a  philosophy  of  morals.     It  must  unfold  in  detail  the 
reasons,  which  are  simply  implied  in    popular  morality,  for 
the  different  value  of  the  different  modes  of  conduct.     Like 
the  science  of  dietetics,  it  must  show  that  certain  modes  of 
conduct  which  have  been  followed  instinctively  for  a  long  time, 
are  suited  to  the  nature  and  conditions  of  human  life,  and  are 
therefore  beneficial,  while  others  are  injurious  and  pernicious. 
It  will  show,  for  example,  that  it  lies  in  the  very  nature  of 
falsehood  to  injure  the  deceiver,  the  person  deceived,  and  the 
entire  community  which  is  united  by  the  ties  of  language,  by 
destroying  confidence  and  thereby  undermining  the  founda- 
tion of  social  life,  without  which  real  human  life  is  not  pos- 


I 


\ 


Itll 


ll'i 


R 


Hi 


\ 


jQ  INTRODUCTION 

sible  It  will  Show  that  stealing  disturbs  the  economic  life 
of  the  injured  party,  and  almost  necessarily  "ttfy  destroys 
that  of  the  thief,  and,  finally,  that  it  endangers  the  hfe  of  he 
entire  community  by  making  property  insecure,  -^ich  .s  the 
inevitable  effect  of  theft,  and  thereby  undermmes  the  founda- 
tions of  civilization  and  all  human  life.  In  this  way,  moral 
philosophy  changes  imtinetive  custom  into  eonseioua  purpos- 

'"^  But 'it  may  possibly  do  more  than  this.     Just  as  medical 
dietetics  does  not  merely  explain,  but  rectifies  the  rules  of 
natural  dietetics,  so  moral  philosophy  does  not  merely  justify 
the  injunctions  of  natural  morality,  but  also  supplements  and 
corrects  them.     Thus  it  may,  for  example,  in  giymg  the  rea- 
sons for  a  rule,  at  the  same  time  define  the  l.mits  witnn 
which  it  holds.    In  explaining  the  perniciousness  of  f a  se 
hood,  it  at  the  same  time  helps  us  to  decide  when  wilful 
deception  may  be  allowable   and  necessary.    It  solves  the 
problem  of  the  socalled  lie  of  necessity,  which  so  strang^y 
confuses  common-sense  (as  well   as  many  morahsts).    By 
showing  why  it  is  good  to  forgive  injuries,  it  at  the  same 
time  determines  under  what  conditions  alone  forgiveness  is 
possible,  and  under  what  conditions  retaliation  is  necessary. 
Naturalistic  morality   with   its  absolute  imperatives  leaves 
us  entirely  in  the  lurch  in  complicated  cases ;  it  leaves  it  to 
the  individual's  own   instinct  or  to  his  tact,  as  it  is  usu- 
ally  called,  to  settle  the   point.      Moral   philosophy  cannot 
make  tact  superfluous;  particular  decisions,  based  upon  con- 
crete circumstances,  must  always  be  left  to  tact ;  but  it  may 
lay  down  rules  for  the  guidance  of  tact  which  will  accomplish 
more  than  these  absolute  imperatives. 

Such  is  the  method  of  ethics  in  tlie  doctrine  of  virtues  and 
duties.  It  explains  its  propositions  teleologically  and  caus- 
ally •  in  order  to  reach  such  and  such  a  goal,  such  and  such 
behavior  is  necessary.  But  what  about  the  knowledge  of  the 
goal  itself?    From  what  source  does  ethics  derive  the  knowl- 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


11 


edge  of  the  perfect  life  ;  how  does  it  prove  that  its  definition 
of  the  highest  good  is  correct  ? 
^        Here  the  case  is  somewhat  different.     We  may  say  :  The 
nature  of  the  highest  good  is  in  reality  not  determined  by  the 
intellect,  but  by  the  will.      The  individual   has  an  idea  of 
the  conduct  of  his  individual  life,  a  life-ideal,  the  realization  of 
which  he  feels  to  be  his  true  function  as  well  as  the  highest 
goal  of  his  desires.     It  is  really  not  the  intellect  from  which 
this  ideal  springs,  although  it  appears  in  the  form  of  an  idea ; 
its  excellence  cannot  be  proved  to  the  reason  ;  it  is  nothing 
but  the  reflection  of  the  innermost  essence  and  the  will  of  the 
individual   himself  in   ideation.     If  other  individuals   have 
different  ideals,  I  cannot  prove  to  them   the  inadequacy  of 
their  ideals  either  by  logical  demonstrations  or  by  empirical 
causal  investigations.     I  may,  perhaps,  make  them  feel  the 
value  of  my  ideal  by  the  mere  revelation  and  description  of  it ; 
indeed,  I  may  convince  them  that  mine  has  greater  value  than 
theirs,  and  thus  win  them  over  to  mine.     Nevertheless,  it  is 
not  the  understanding,  but  the  will  which  impels  them  to  de- 
cide in  its  favor.    The  intellect  as  such  knows  absolutely  noth- 
ing of  values,  it  distinguishes  between  the  true  and  the  false, 
the  real  and  unreal,  but  not  between  the  good  and  the  bad. 

Earlier  ethics  frequently  discussed  the  question  whether  rea- 
son or  feeling  was  the  source  of  moral  knowledge.  We  shall 
say  that  both  are  involved.  The  question  :  What  is  a  good 
life,  will  in  the  last  analysis  be  decided  by  immediate,  incontro- 
vertible feeling,  in  which  the  innermost  essence  of  the  being 
manifests  itself.  It  is  as  impossible  to  force  a  man  by  logical 
proofs  to  love  and  admire  an  ideal  of  life  as  it  is  to  make  his 
tongue  feel  the  sweetness  or  bitterness  of  a  particular  fruit. 
We  can  arouse  such  feelings  only  by  showing  that  an  object 
possesses  the  qualities  which  originally  produced  them  in 
him,  owing  to  .his  nature.  And  to  a  certain  extent,  a  person's 
taste  for  the  /goods  of  life  may  be  changed  by  habit,  as  his 
taste  for  certain  foods  may  be   changed.     In    that    case, 


a 


if 


t  .    h 


j^2  INTRODUCTION 

however,  the  change  depends  on  the  internal  modification 
of  the  nature  of  the  being.  But  we  may  when  once  the 
conception  of  the  highest  good  is  established,  make  clear  to 
the  intellect  that  such  or  such  means  are  beneficial  or 
injurious  to  its  realization. 

It  will  not,  therefore,  be  possible  to  give  a  scientific  defini- 
tion of  the  highest  good,  which  shall  be  valid  for  all,-- one, 
that  is,  which  we  can  force  every  individual  by  logica  proofs  to 
accept ;  or,  at  least,  it  will  be  possible  only  in  so  far  as  the 
^^dll  itself  is  fundamentally  the  same  in  all  individuals.     And 
we  may,  considering  the  far-reaching  similarity  of  the  powers 
and  the  conditions  of  life,  assume  that  this  is,  in  a  certain  de- 
gree, actually  the  case.     Just  as  all  the  members  of  an  animal 
species,  on  the  whole,  desire  to  perform  the  same  functions, 
so  we  shall  find  a  certain  similarity  of  ends  or  aims  in  the 
human  species.     It  would  be  the  business  of  a  kind  of  na  ura  - 
historical  investigation  to  discover  such  a  uniform  goal.     I 
would  have  to  be  shown,  in  the  most  general  formu^  what 
men  actually  desire  as  the  highest  good,  or  the  perfect  life 
The  purpose  of  the  moralist  would  here  be  identical  with  that 
of  the  biologist :  he  would  be  obliged  not  to  prescribe  the 
croal  of  life,  but  to  discover  it.     Should  he,  however  succeed 
hi  discovering  a  universal  end  of  life,  he  could  not,  o    coui^e, 
refuse  to  designate  individuals  absolutely  deviating  from  the 
ffoal  or  having  differently-fashioned  wills  (if  there  should  be 
such),  as  abnormal  forms.     As  is  well  known,  there  are  per- 
verse  sexual  impulses.     Although  it  is  impossible  to  prove 
to  those  who  are  so  afflicted  that  their  impulses  are  perverse 
-they  say:  Impulses  are  facts;  your  impulse,  tendmg  as  it 
does    is  no  more  and  no  less  a  mere  fact  than  ours -the 
physiologist  is  convinced  that  it  is  abnormal,  and  the  person 
so  afflicted  can  be  clearly  made  to  see  that  he  is  an  exception, 
and  that  life  would  not  be  possible  if  the  perversity  were  the 
rule      The  same  reasoning  applies  to  an  abnormal  will.     A 
man,  for  example,  who  is  sensitive  only  to  sensual  impressions, 


NATURE   AND  FUNCTION   OF  ETHICS 


13 


say,  to  those  of  the  palate,  and  has  absolutely  no  appreciation  of 
the  other  pleasures,  the  pleasures  which  spring  from  perception 
and  knowledge,  the  exercise  of  powers,  or  is  totally  indifferent 
to  the  weal  and  woe  of  his  human  surroundings  or  uniformly 
enjoys  their  sufferings :  such  a  being  we  should  regard  as  an 
abnormal  form,  and  we  should  not  hesitate  to  call  him  per- 
verse, even  though  we  could  not  convince  him  of  the  correct- 
ness of  our  condemnatory  judgment.  And  it  is  quite  possible 
that  he  would  not  even  grant  that  his  nature  was  abnormal, 
that  is,  a  deviation  from  the  average,  nay,  he  might  assert 
that  could  we  but  look  beneath  the  outward  appearances  we 
should  find  that  all  others  thought  and  felt  as  he  did. 

5.  Let  me  here  add  a  remark  concerning  the  relation  of 
"^  moral  laws  to  natural  laws.  Natural  laws  are  formulae  which 
express  the  constant  uniformity  of  natural  occurrences.  In 
the  narrower  sense  of  the  term,  the  concept  is  interpreted  to 
mean  an  absolute  uniformity,  one  admitting  of  no  exceptions. 
Thus,  physics  assumes  that  the  law  of  gravitation  is  an  exact 
mathematical  expression  of  the  uniform  reciprocal  action  of 
all  masses  in  the  universe.  In  this  sense,  the  law  of  causality 
itself  is  conceived  as  a  strictly  universal  natural  law.  In  a 
wider  sense,  however,  we  also  designate  as  natural  laws  such 
uniform  occurrences  in  nature  as  are  not  absolutely,  but  rela- 
tively constant.  The  laws  of  biology  for  the  most  part  belong  to 
this  class ;  for  example,  the  laws  which  express  the  uniformity 
of  structure  and  function  of  an  animal  or  plant  species.  In 
this  sense,  we  may  evidently  call  the  propositions  of  medical 
dietetics  natural  laws :  As  a  rule  such  and  such  a  method  of 
procedure  reacts  upon  the  body  in  such  and  such  a  way  ;  Cold 
water  ablutions  harden  the  skin  and  the  entire  organism 
against  changes  in  temperature  ;  The  exercise  of  the  mus- 
cular and  nervous  systems  leads  to  an  increase  in  strength 
and  skill,  while  organs  which  are  not  used  decay  ;  Opium  and 
alcohol  have  such  and  such  direct  and  such  and  such  indi- 
rect effects  upon  the  organism.     All  these  are  uniformities 


14 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE   AND   FUNCTION  OF   ETHICS 


15 


^■f 


which  cannot  be  determined  with  mathematical  exactness, 
and  which,  owing  to  the  complexity  of  vital  processes,  do 
not  appear  with  the  same  constant  regularity  as  those  de- 
scribed by  physics,  but  nevertheless  they  express  universal 
and  regular  tendencies. 

In  the  same  sense,  we  may  call  the  propositions  of  ethics 
natural  laws :  they,  too,  express  the  constant  connections 
existing  between  modes  of  conduct  and  their  effects  upon 
life.  Falsehood  has  the  tendency  to  produce  distrust ;  dis- 
trust has  the  tendency  to  disturb  and  destroy  human  social 
life :  these  are  generalizations  of  the  same  kind  as  the  asser- 
tion that  alcohol  tends  to  impair  consciousness.  The  proposi- 
tion :  Idleness  weakens  the  powers  of  the  understanding  and 
the  will,  is  nothing  but  a  universal  biological  law,  translated 
into  psychological  language. 

The  objection  is  urged :  The  propositions  of  ethics  or  the 
moral  laws  declare  what  ought  to  he,  and  not  what  is,  as  do 
the  natural  laws.  Thou  shalt  not  lie,  is  a  law  of  morality, 
one  that  is  universally  valid  in  spite  of  all  the  deviations  of 
reality.  The  moral  laws,  it  is  held,  are  closely  related  to 
the  laws  on  the  statute  books,  not  to  the  laws  of  nature.  — 
They  are  certainly  related  to  these  ;  nay,  perhaps  we  may 
say  that  the  statutes  merely  represent  a  section  of  the  moral 
law.  But  that  does  not  hinder  them  from  being  related  to 
natural  laws.  The  statutory  laws  undoubtedly  express  what 
ought  to  be,  and  there  are  exceptions  to  them  in  actual 
practice.  Still  these  are  but  exceptions ;  as  a  rule,  the  law 
is  an  expression  of  the  actual  behavior  of  the  citizens ;  we 
should  surely  not  reckon  among  the  laws  of  the  state  a  law 
that  is  universally  violated.  It  is  a  real  law,  not  because  it 
is  printed  on  a  piece  of  paper,  but  because  it  is  an  expression 
of  the  uniformity  of  action,  even  though  this  uniformity  be 
not  absolute.  Moreover,  although  the  law  of  the  state  has 
its  origin  in  the  will  of  man,  it  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  based 
-upon  the  nature  of  things,  upon  the  causal  connections  exist- 


ing between  modes  of  conduct  and  their  effects  upon  life. 
'i  Thou  shalt  not  commit  forgery,  shalt  not  steal,  shalt  not  com- 
mit arson,  or,  as  the  law  declares :  Whoever  forges,  steals, 
or  commits  arson,  shall  receive  such  and  such  punishment : 
this  law  owes  its  origin  to  the  fact  that  such  acts  have  injur- 
ious effects  upon  society.  Stealing  has  the  tendency  to 
undermine  property  rights,  forgery  has  the  tendency  to 
undermine  credit,  and  consequently  to  interfere  with  the  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  commodities.  This  natural  law 
is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  statutory  law  ;  the  statutory  law 
is  a  rule  of  conduct  for  the  members  of  a  community  whose 
aim  is  the  security  of  the  conditions  of  social  life. 

The  same  remarks  apply  to  the  moral  law.     A  moral  law 
declares  not  only  what  ought  to  be,  but  what  is.  The  historian 
of  civilization  will  undoubtedly  declare :  It  is  an  expression  of 
the  relatively  uniform  behavior  of  the  members  of  the  group 
who  acknowledge  its  validity,  and  it  is,  at  all  events,  a  principle 
according  to  which  acts  are  universally  judged.     If  falsehood 
were  as  common  among  a  people  as  truth-telling,  if  falsehood 
were  not  judged  differently  from  veracity,  there  would  be  no 
moral  law  on  the  subject.    And  should  a  moralist  come  to 
such  a  community  and  say :  But  it  is  an  absolute  law  that  you 
should  not  lie,  he  would  be  told :   We  don't  understand  you, 
and  will  not  be  bothered  by  your  whims !   There  is,  of  course, 
no  such  a  people,  not  because  falsehood  ought  not  to  be,  but 
because  it  cannot  be  a  universal  mode  of  conduct.     Falsehood 
can  occur  only  as  an  exception :  that  is  a  law  of  nature,  not  a 
logical,  but  a  psychological  law.     Lying  presupposes  faith  in 
human  speech,  and  such  trust  can  exist  only  where  truth- 
telling  is  the  rule.     And  when  this  uniform  relation  between 
truth  and  confidence,  falsehood  and  distrust,  becomes  fixed 
m  conduct  and  finally  also  in  consciousness,  the  moral  law  is 
formulated  TThou  shalt  not  lie.      The  causal  law  forms  the 
basis  of  the  practical  rule,  in  morals  as  well  as  in  jurispru- 
dence and  medicine.     If  there  were  no  uniform  connections 


IG 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


17 


i 


■' 


between  causes  and  effects,  between  acts  and  individual  and 
social  life,  there  would  be  no  moral  laws.  The  moral  law  is 
not  the  product  of  caprice,  not  the  arbitrary  command  of  a 
transcendent  despot  or  of  an  uncontrollable  "  inner  voice," 
but  the  expression  of  an  immanent  law  of  human  life.  Human 
life,  that  is,  a  life  with  a  human  mental-historical  content,  is 
possible  only  where  all  individuals  act  with  relative  uniformity, 
in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  morality,  hence  where  the  moral 
law  has  the  validity  of  a  biological  law.  Deviations  from  the 
moral  law  have  the  tendency  to  produce  disturbances  in  indi- 
vidual and  social  life  ;  absolute  violation  of  the  moral  law 
would  lead,  first,  to  the  destruction  of  human  historical  life, 
and  finally  also  to  the  destruction  of  its  animal  existence. 

Perhaps  a  comparison  with  the  laws  of  grammar  will  eluci- 
date the  formal  character  of  the  moral  laws.  It  is  popularly 
supposed  that  the  laws  of  grammar  declare  what  ought  to  be : 
grammar  prescribes  the  way  in  which  we  ought  to  speak. 
The  history  of  language  regards  grammar  in  a  different  light : 
grammar  does  not  prescribe  the  ways  in  which  we  ought  to 
speak,  but  describes  the  ways  in  which  we  do  speak.  The 
grammarian  of  Gothic  or  Middle  High  German  collects  and 
describes  the  forms  which  were  actually  used  in  the  past ;  the 
paleontologist  collects  and  describes  extinct  forms  of  life; 
and  the  grammarian  of  the  living  language  does  the  same. 
But  a  peculiar  fact  is  observed  here.  There  is  a  difference 
in  the  language  of  different  persons,  of  different  writers. 
True,  we  find  great  uniformity,  at  least  in  the  general  plan 
of  the  language,  in  the  declensions  and  conjugations,  but 
even  here  we  find  exceptions,  especially  in  the  spoken  word. 
This  compels  the  grammarian,  whose  real  aim  is  to  describe 
the  language,  to  choose  between  different  forms,  in  order  to 
reach  universal  propositions.  He  will  be  guided  in  his  choice, 
either  by  the  frequency  of  their  occurrence  or  by  his  estimate 
of  the  linguistic  powers  of  the  writers.  Certain  forms  are 
declared  to  be  the   normal  ones,  and   grammar,  therefore^ 


becomes  a  normative  science  after  all:  it  decides  what  is 
correct  and  what  is  incorrect.  This  procedure,  however,  it 
must  be  confessed,  is  ultimately  governed  by  teleological 
necessity :  the  purpose  of  the  language  is  to  communicate 
thoughts;  deviations  make  this  impossible,  and  they  are 
therefore  eliminated  as  disturbing  elements. 

In  the  same  way,  popular  thought  regards  it  as  the  func- 
tion of  moral  philosophy  to  prescribe  laws.  But  anthropology 
and  history  have  a  different  conception  of  the  problem.  The 
primary  aim  is  not  to  prescribe  what  men  ought  to  do,  and 
according  to  what  principles  they  ought  to  judge,  but  to 
describe  and  understand  the  ways  in  which  they  really  act 
and  live.  And  to  understand  them  means  to  understand  the 
teleological  necessity  of  their  customs,  laws,  and  institutions. 
Hence,  here  as  before,  a  descriptive  and  explanatory  science 
becomes  a  normative  science :  its  propositions  become  prin- 
ciples of  judgment  and  rules  of  conduct,  in  so  far  as  they 
represent  the  conditions  of  human  welfare.^ 

6.  Let  me  now  make  a  few  more  statements  concerning 
the  function  of  ethics  to  define  the  highest  good.  In  sec- 
tion 3  we  used  the  term  perfection.  A  perfect  human  life, 
that  is,  a  life  in  which  all  the  bodily  and  mental  powers  of 
man  are  fully  developed  and  exercised,  is  the  highest  good 
for  the  individual.  We  shall  have  to  discuss  the  material 
phase  of  this  definition  in  detail  later  on.  Here  I  shall 
simply  enter  upon  a  brief  consideration  of  its  formal  side. 
It  has  been  said  that  this  is  a  purely  formal,  empty  definition, 
which  may  be  filled  with  any  concrete  content  whatsoever. 
As  compared  with  this  conception,  the  definiteness  of  other 
views,  for  instance,  that  pleasure  is  the  absolute  good,  has 

ft 

1  Schleiermacher,  whose  entire  ethics  rests  upon  a  parallelism  between  ethics 
and  physics,  the  moral  law  and  the  natural  law,  discusses  the  difference  between 
natural  law  and  moral  law  in  an  academic  treatise  of  the  year  1825.  (Complete 
Works,  3d  Division,  vol.  II.,  p.  397.)  Compare  also  F.  J.  Neumann,  Natural  Law 
and  Economic  Law  (in  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  die  gesamt.  Staatsw.,  1892,  number  3), 
and  Eucken,  Fundamental  Concepts  of  the  Present,  2d  ed.,  1893,  pp.  I73£f. 

2 


18 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION   OF  ETHICS 


19 


ft 


been  extolled.  When  we  speak  of  pleasure,  it  has  been 
claimed,  we  know  what  we  are  talking  about.  I  shall  have 
to  defer  the  discussion  of  hedonism  to  a  later  time.  Here, 
however,  I  should  like  to  show  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  to 
give  anything  but  a  formal  explanation  of  the  highest  good. 
Medical  dietetics  does  not  give  us  a  concrete  exposition  of 
the  perfect  bodily  life,  but  only  a  general  outline,  which  may 
be  filled  in  in  many  different  ways.  Similarly,  ethics  can  give 
only  a  schematic  outline  of  a  mode  of  life,  the  observance 
of  which  does  not  necessarily  make  a  life  valuable,  although 
it  is  the  presupposition  of  the  healthy  development  of  life. 
The  value  of  such  a  life  depends  upon  the  number  of  con- 
crete elements  which  it  contains,  and  no  system  of  ethics, 
not  even  the  hedonistic,  can  undertake  to  describe  them. 

The  following  illustration   will  make  our  meaning  clear. 
We  cannot  speak  of  one  perfect  life.    A  people  or  a  race  con- 
sisting of  totally  similar  copies  of  a  perfect  original  pattern 
would  strike  us  as  an  infinitely  poor  and  empty  affair.     Nay, 
the  very  thought  of  such  a  thing  is  horrible.     Imagine  a  mul- 
titude of  human  beings  wholly  alike  as  to  their  inner  nature 
and  life,  differing  from  each  other  only  in  the  numbers  at- 
tached to  them.    Perfection  consists,  not  in  the  similarity,  but 
in  the  variety  of  forms.   In  order  to  give  a  concrete  representa- 
tion of  the  perfect  life,  we  should  have  to  take  our  ideal  of 
humanity,  and  show  what  different  forms  of  human  life  are 
possible  or  necessary  to  realize  the  idea ;  that  is,  we  should 
have  to  describe  a  multitude  of  nations,  tribes,  families,  in- 
dividuals, and  the  modes  of  life  necessarily  resulting   from 
their  natural  endowments.     This  would  be  the  function  of  an 
artistic  or  creative  philosophy  of  history ;  manifestly  an  im- 
possible task.     Indeed,  it  is  not  even  possible  to  deduce  the 
past  life  of  humanity,  which  history  reveals  to  us,  with  its 
multitudes    of  peoples  and  its  historical  development,  from 
an  idea  of  humanity  ;  much  less  to  outline  the  future  history 
and  its  new  forms. 


No  one  expects  cesthetics  to  represent  beauty  in  the  con- 
crete, that  is,  to  deduce  all  the  real  and  possible  beautiful 
pictures,  statues,  poems,  and  musical  compositions  from  an 
idea  of  the  beautiful.  The  production  of  concrete  beauty 
is  the  business  of  the  genius.  -Esthetics  reflects  upon  the 
products  of  genius,  it  aims  to  express  in  general  formulae 
the  conditions  upon  which  the  products  depend,  or  at  least 
without  which  they  cannot  arise.  It  cannot,  that  is  to  say, 
propose  concrete  problems  to  the  future  artist,  but  it  can 
assist  him  in  gaining  an  insight  into  his  art  and  avoiding 
mistakes.  The  same  may  be  said  of  ethics;  it  does  not 
describe  every  possible  form  of  good  life  —  this  the  moral 
genius  evolves  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  nature  —  but  under- 
takes to  describe  and  to  justify  the  rules  of  conduct  without 
which  a  good  and  beautiful  life  cannot  be  realized.  And 
ethics,  too,  may  indulge  in  the  hope  that  it  can,  in  a  measure, 
guide  the  student  in  discovering  his  peculiar  life's  task,  and 
guard  him  against  error  in  his  attempts  to  solve  it. 
^  7.  It  further  follows  from  the  above  that  there  can  be  no 
universal  morality  in  the  concrete.  The  different  expressions 
of  the  universal  type  of  man  demand  each  its  own  particular 
morality.  The  Englishman  differs  from  the  Chinaman  and 
negro,  and  desires  and  ought  to  differ  from  them.  Conse- 
quently, each  one  among  them  has  a  different  morality.  It  is 
an  undoubted  fact  that  every  nation  has  its  own  particular  ideal 
of  life  and  its  own  morality.  The  only  question  is  whether 
**•  what  is  "  "  ought  to  be."  It  is  absolutely  essential,  so  it 
is  claimed,  that  the  propositions  of  morality  be  valid  for  all 
mankind  or,  in  the  words  of  Kant,  "  for  all  rational  crea- 
tures." If  we  admit  that  there  is  a  different  code  of  morals 
for  Englishmen  and  negroes,  then  shall  we  not  have  to  con- 
clude that  there  is  a  different  code  for  men  and  women,  for 
artists  and  merchants,  and,  finally,  also,  one  for  each  par- 
ticular man  ? 

Indeed,  the  conclusion  is  a  logical  one.     But  I  do  not  see 


20 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE   AND   FUNCTION   OF   ETHICS 


21 


how  we  can  avoid  it  if  once  we  grant  and  insist  upon  the 
assertion  that  differences  in  life  are  not  only  not  an  evil,  but 
essential  conditions  of  the  perfection  of  mankind.  If  we  jus- 
tify the  different  forms  of  human  life,  we  shall  also  have  to 
justify  the  different  rules  of  conduct.  Just  as  the  dietetics 
of  the  Englishman  naturally  differs  from  that  of  the  negro, 
his  morality,  which,  according  to  our  conception,  is  merely  a 
universal  dietetics,  must  differ  from  his.  We  shall,  there- 
fore, be  compelled  to  say  that  a  mode  of  conduct  which  is 
suitable  and  essential  to  the  former  need  not  be  so  to  the 
latter.  And  we  find  not  only  that  the  Englishman  actually 
treats  the  negro  differently  from  one  of  his  own  countrymen, 
but  that  his  relations  to  the  negro  are  governed  by  an  en- 
tirely different  code  of  morality  ;  all  of  which  does  not  mean, 
of  course,  that  I  am  willing  to  justify  the  atrocities  which 
have  been  and  are  still  being  committed  every  day  against 
the  savages  in  the  name  of  civilization,  by  Europeans  —  alas, 
now  also  by  the  Germans. 

Only  in  a  limited  sense  can  we  speak  of  a  universal  moral- 
ity. In  so  far,  namely,  as  there  are  certain  fundamental  sim- 
ilarities in  the  nature  and  life-conditions  of  all  human  beings, 
in  so  far  will  there  be  certain  universally  valid  fundamental 
conditions  of  healthy  life.  Thus  medical  dietetics  may  present 
certain  fundamental  rules  as  universal  truths:  A  certain 
amount  of  food,  consisting,  say,  of  such  and  such  substances, 
albumen,  fats,  carbo-hydrates,  water,  etc.,  furthermore,  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  work  and  rest  is  necessary  to  the  preservation 
of  bodily  life.  In  the  same  sense,  morality  can  advance  uni- 
versal propositions :  The  preservation  of  human  life  demands 
that  some  attention  be  given  to  the  care  of  offspring  and  the 
rearing  of  the  young ;  and  in  order  that  this  end  may  be  reached 
the  sexes  must  live  together  in  some  permanent  form.  Or : 
A  tribe  cannot  exist  without  some  regulations  tending  to 
hinder  hostilities  among  its  members  ;  the  infraction  of  such 
rules  tends  to  breed  ruin;  hence,  murder,  adultery,  theft, 


and  perjury  are  bad ;  justice,  benevolence,  and  veracity,  the 
inner  dispositions  of  the  will  which  prevent  such  acts,  are 
good. 

But  in  order  that  such  universal  rules  may  be  directly 
applied,  life  must  be  adapted  to  the  particular  nature  and 
the  particular  conditions  surrounding  it.  The  dietetic  rule 
of  nourishment  mentioned  above  does  not  mean  the  same 
for  the  Esquimau  as  for  the  negro.  Similarly,  the  rules  of 
a  universal  human  morality  must  be  adapted  to  the  special 
historical  forms  and  conditions  of  life  before  they  can  be 
directly  employed  in  determining  and  judging  conduct.  The 
commandment:  Treat  your  neighbor  justly  and  kindly, 
observe  the  rules  of  family  and  social  life,  does  not  mean 
the  same  for  an  African  negro  as  for  a  European  Christian. 
That  monogamy  is  the  best  form  of  family  life  for  a  civil- 
ized nation  does  not  prove  that  it  is  the  best  form  for  the 
entirely  different  conditions  governing  the  negro  tribe.  We 
may  say  with  perfect  justice  that  monogamy  is  the  higher 
form  of  family  life.  But  that  simply  means  that  it  is  suitable 
to  the  higher  stages  of  development  and  not  that  it  is  wrong 
for  the  lower  stages  to  have  a  different  form.  Perhaps  polyg- 
amy is  a  necessary  stage  in  the  development  of  the  family, 
just  as  blood-revenge  is  a  necessary  stage  in  the  development 
of  law,  and  slavery  in  the  development  of  society. 

This  implies  also  that  different  times  have  different  moral 
codes.  That  it  is  so  is  an  indisputable  fact,  but  it  is  hard  to 
convince  common-sense  that  it  must  be  so,  that  it  is  not 
necessarily  a  sign  of  imperfection  and  perversion  for  an 
earlier  age  to  have  other  customs,  different  acts  and  judg- 
ments, than  the  present.  We  are  inclined  to  think  that  what- 
ever differs  from  our  customs  is  all  wrong.  We  blame  the 
Middle  Ages  for  burning  heretics  and  witches,  torturing  sus- 
pects and  killing  criminals  by  the  thousands.  We  are  right 
in  calling  their  methods  brutal  and  barbarous.  This,  how- 
ever, does  not  prove  that  a  brutal  age  did  wrong  in  employ- 


\ 


22  INTRODUCTION 

ing  tbem.     Perhaps  it  did  ;  perhaps,  at  least,  these  methods 
were  frequently  abused,  but  perhaps,  on  the  other  hand  — 
proof,  of  course,  is  impossible  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  —  this  method  of  procedure  was  suitable  and  necessary 
in  that  age.     Perhaps  the  disciplining  of  human   souls  by 
the  church  was  so  necessary  a  precondition  of   civilization, 
that  the  Middle  Ages  stand  justified  before  the  tribunal  of 
history,  for  suppressing,  with  all  the  means  at  their  command, 
every  attempt  of  the  individual  to  emancipate  himself  from 
this  discipline  (which  was  the  usual  object  of  heresy).     Per- 
haps the  entire  administration  of  justice  of  those  days,  with 
its  brutal  methods,  was  at  least  a  temporarily  necessary  pre- 
condition of   the  complicated  social   life  of  the  mediaeval 
towns.     It  is  consoling  that  our  courts  and  police  are  more 
efficient,  and  attain  the  same  or  better  results  by  means  of 
more  humane  methods,  but  this  does  not  prove  that  the  Mid- 
die  Ages  could  have  preserved  the  peace  in  the  same  way. 
The  Middle  Ages  might  make  the  following  answer  to  our 
charges :  You  owe  it  to  us  that  you  are  now  able  to  get  along 
with  such  mild  punishments;   it  has  taken  us  centuries  of 
hard  work  to  eradicate  the  elements  which  absolutely  refused 
to  adapt  themselves  to  social  order.     To  be  sure,  this  was  no 
agreeable  task;  but  now  that  it  is  accomplished,  it  is  not 
fair  of  you  to  censure  us  for  having  undertaken  it.     Besides, 
who  knows  how  long  your  methods  will  prove  successful  ? 

And  now  we  shall  have  to  go  still  further  and  say :  Even 
different  groups  of  the  same  nation,  and,  finally,  also, 
different  individuals  are  subject  to  a  special  moral  code. 
Different  dispositions  and  life-conditions  demand  not  only 
a  different  bodily,  but  also  a  different  spiritual  and  moral 
diet.  What  is  beneficial  and  necessary  to  one  may  be  un- 
suitable and  injurious  to  another.  We  are  never  in  doubt 
about  this  fact  when  it  comes  to  actual  practice.  We  disap- 
prove and  censure  one  man  for  something  that  we  consider 
permissible  or  lovable  in  another.     Indeed,  we  may  say  that 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


23 


it  is  not  possible  for  different  individuals  to  act  exactly  in 
the  same  way.  If  it  is  true  that  the  entire  nature  of  the 
agent  manifests  itself  in  every  act  —  and  we  may  say  that  it 
is  characteristic  of  real  human  action  to  express  not  merely 
a  particular  phase  of  man's  nature,  but  the  whole  will,  the 
entire  man  —  then  every  impulse  and  every  act,  every  word 
and  every  judgment,  bears  the  stamp  of  this  particular  indi- 
vidual. Conduct  is  only  outwardly  alike ;  on  the  inner  and 
the  essential  side  the  individuality  asserts  itself,  and  that 
is  not  a  defect,  but  a  mark  of  perfection.  Only  where  true 
morality  begins  to  disappear,  where  it  approaches  the  domain 
of  law,  does  the  demand  still  hold  that  a  man  act,  outwardly 
at  least,  according  to  rule.     As  Schiller's  epigram  puts  it: 

Gem  erlassen  wir  dir  die  moralische  Delikatesse, 
Wenn  du  die  zehen  Gebote  notdiirftig  erf iiUst 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  there  is  a  reason  why  the 
moral  preacher  should  emphasize  the  universality  of  the  moral 
laws  rather  than  the  individuality  of  morality.  Nature  and 
inclination  will  take  care  that  the  individual  receives  his 
rights;  whereas  submission  to  a  general  rule  is  not  to  his 
taste.  Indeed,  the  individual  is  very  apt  to  demand  that  an 
exception  be  made  in  his  case,  on  the  ground  of  his  special 
nature  and  circumstances,  his  temperament  and  his  social 
position,  and  to  excuse  his  conduct  before  others  and  before 
his  own  conscience,  without,  however,  being  justified  from  the 
standpoint  of  higher  morality.  Kant's  rigorism  is  entirely  in 
place  against  the  inclinations  of  the  natural  man.  f'^The  main 
thing  is  that  the  sensuous  will  be  subordinated  to  universal 
law.  This  is  the  beginning,  the  foundation,  of  all  finer,  more 
individualized  morality.  The  latter  is,  in  the  words  of  the 
Gospel,  not  the  "  destruction  "  of  the  law,  but  the  "  fulfilment " 
(jr\rjpQ)(TL<;)  of  the  law.  Nor,  as  has  already  been  said,  can 
morality  tell  the  individual  in  what  the  fulfilment  consists. 
All  it  can  do  is  to  lay  down  general  rules,  leaving  it  to  the 


24 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


25 


conscience  and  to  the  wisdom  of  the  individual  to  adapt  these 
to  special  conditions.     When,  however,  he  needs  guidance  in 
these  matters,  he  will  seek  the  help  of  a  personal  counsellor,  a 
spiritual  adviser,  who  is,  perhaps,  as  necessary  as  is  a  medical 
adviser  for  the  body.    For,  surely,  the  relations  of  moral  life 
are  no  less  complicated,  its  problems  no  less  difficult,  its  needs 
no  less  serious,  its  disturbances  no  less  menacing,  than  those 
of  bodily  life.     Here  as  well  as  in  the  latter  case  we  have  a 
confusing  mixture  of  inclination  and  aversion,  fear  and  hope. 
All    this   seemed    self-evident  to   an   earlier   age;    nothing 
seemed  more  necessary  than  to  place  the  individual  under  the 
official  care  of  a  wise  and   experienced  moral  and  spiritual 
adviser,  leaving  it  to  custom  and  individual  instinct  to  care 
for  the  body.     Is  the  present  increase  of  physicians  and  the 
corresponding  relative  decrease  of  spiritual  advisers  a  sign 
that  we  are  more  solicitous  of  the  body  than  of  the  soul  ?     Or 
are  we  in  hopes  of  influencing  the  soul  by  means  of  the  body  ? 
Or  is  it  because  the  task  of  caring  for  the  soul  is  becoming 
more  difficult  in  consequence  of  the  growing  differentiation  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  because  our  faith  in  its  accomplish- 
ment is  waning  ? 
V      The  fact  remains,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  rules  of 
moral  philosophy  are  not  absolutely  valid  for  all.     We  may, 
as  was  said,  conceive  of  a  universal  human  morality,  or  even 
of  a  morality  for  all  rational  creatures,  but  no  one  is  able  to 
realize  it.     The  moral  philosopher  is  a  child  of  his  people  in 
thought  and  feelings,  and  is  inlluenced   by  their  morality; 
positively,  for  he  has  been  moulded  by  their  judgments  and 
ideals  from  the  days  of  his  childhood ;  negatively,  for  his  no- 
tions of  what  ought  not  to  be  and  his  ideas  of  what  ought  to  be 
are  conditioned  by  his  times.     The  abstract  rationalism  of  the 
eighteenth  century  did  not  appreciate  this  truth,  which  Kant, 
too,  failed  to  observe.     The  historical  century,  as  the  nine- 
teenth century  might  be  called  in  contradistinction  from  the 
eighteenth,   the   sceculum  philosophicum,  no   longer   finds  it 


possible  to  believe  in  the  "universal  man."  Every  moral 
philosophy  is,  therefore,  valid  only  for  the  sphere  of  civiliza- 
tion from  which  it  springs,  whether  it  is  conscious  of  the  fact 
or  not.  It  can  have  no  other  aim  than  to  draw  the  general 
outlines  of  a  mode  of  life  which  must  be  followed  by  the 
members  of  the  particular  sphere,  in  order  to  make  possible 
a  healthy,  virtuous,  and  happy  existence. 

8.  In  conclusion,  let  me  say  a  word  concerning  the  practi- 
cal value  of  ethics.  Can  ethics  be  a  practical  science,  not  only 
in  the  sense  that  it  deals  with  practice,  but  that  it  influences 
practice  ?  This  was  its  original  purpose.  It  is  the  function 
of  ethics,  says  Aristotle,  to  act,  not  only  to  theorize.  Scho- 
penhauer begins  his  ethics  (in  the  fourth  book  of  his  main 
work)  with  the  attempt  to  disprove  this  view.  All  philosophy, 
he  says,  is  theoretical ;  upon  mature  reflection,  it  ought 
finally  to  abandon  the  old  demand  that  it  become  practical, 
guide  action,  and  transform  character,  for  here  it  is  not  dead 
concepts  that  decide,  but  the  innermost  essence  of  the  human 
being,  the  demon  that  guides  him.  It  is  as  impossible  to  teach 
virtue  as  it  is  to  teach  genius.  It  would  be  as  foolish  to  ex- 
pect our  moral  systems  to  produce  virtuous  characters  and 
saints  as  to  expect  the  science  of  aesthetics  to  bring  forth 
poets,  sculptors,  and  musicians. 

I  do  not  believe  that  ethics  need  be  so  faint-hearted.  Its 
first  object,  it  is  true,  is  to  understand  human  strivings  and 
modes  of  conduct,  conditions  and  institutions,  as  well  as  their 
effects  upon  individual  and  social  life.  But  if  knowledge  is 
capable  of  influencing  conduct  —  which  Schopenhauer  him- 
self would  not  deny— it  is  hard  to  understand  why  the 
knowledge  of  ethics  alone  should  be  fruitless  in  this  respect. 
If  a  physician  can  by  pointing  out  the  causal  relation  existing 
between  cleanliness  and  health,  between  the  excessive  use 
of  alcohol  or  nicotine  and  the  derangement  of  the  nervous 
system,  induce  a  mother  to  use  water  more  freely,  or  a  young 
man  to  be  moderate,  why  should  not  a  moralist  have  a  right 


^ 


y 


'ill 


26 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE  AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


27 


to  hope  that  the  discovery  of  similar  causal  connections  exist- 
ing between  conduct  and  the  form  of  life  will  influence  con- 
duct ?    If  he  can  make  clear  that  dissipation,  indolence,  anger, 
envy,  falsehood,  inconsiderateness,  produce  certain  disturb- 
ances in  life,  while  prudence,  politeness,  modesty,  upright- 
ness, amiability,  tend  to  produce  good  effects  on  the  life  of  the 
individual  and  that  of  his  surroundings,  why  should  not  such 
knowledge  also  influence  the  will  ?     Or  shall  we  assume  that 
everybody  is  perfectly  well  aware  that  the  former  modes  of 
conduct  are  good  and  the  latter  bad,  and  that  we  need  not 
wait  for  ethics  to  tell  us  these  things  ?    And  does  experience 
really  show  that  knowledge  is  unable  to  turn  the  will  in  the 
direction  of  the  good  ;  is  Schopenhauer  right  in  saying,  velle 
non  discitur  f  —  If  so,  I  believe  it  is  not  the  right  kind  of 
knowledge.     A  real  insight^  which,  of  course,  does  not  consist 
merely  in  memorizing  and  rattling  off  a  lot  of  formulas  and 
maxims,  is  bound  to  be  as  fruitful  here  as  everywhere  else. 
To  be  sure,  we  cannot  expect  such  an  insight  to  determine  the 
will  absolutely.    Natural  capacities,  education,  habit,  example, 
praise  and  censure,  the  admiration  and  contempt  of  our  sur- 
roundings, and  other  things,  play  their  part.     But  knowledge, 
too,  is  a  factor  and  a  very  important  factor  with  the  wise  — 
by  whom  we  do  not  necessarily  mean  the  learned.    But  as 
for  Schopenhauer's  dogma  that  the  will  is  something  abso- 
lutely fixed  in  every  life,  I  am  inclined  to  regard  it  as  one  of 
the  articles  of  superstition  of  which  there  is  no  dearth  in 
Schopenhauer's  teaching.     There  is  no  such  rigid,  constant 
will,  not  even  in  the  narrower  sense  in  which  Schopenhauer 
uses  the  term :  that  the  relation  between  egoism  and  altru- 
ism is  unalterably  determined  at  birth  in  the  case  of  every 
individual. 

Moral  instruction,  however,  can  have  no  practical  effect 
unless  there  be  some  agreement  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
final  goal  —  not  a  mere  verbal  agreement,  to  be  sure,  but  one 
based  upon  actual  feeling.     It  would  be  futile  for  a  physician 


to  advise  a  man  who  does  not  care  for  health  and  bodily 
welfare  to  do  certain  things  and  to  abstain  from  others. 
Similarly,  it  would  be  useless  for  a  moral  philosopher  to 
recommend  moderation  and  prudence  to  one  whose  notion 
of  a  "  good  life  "  is  a  few  years  of  excitement  and  dissipa- 
tion, and  then  a  bullet  through  the  brain.  Or  perhaps  it  would 
not  be  all  in  vain.  Who  knows  but  what  he  might  finally 
succeed  in  convincing  such  a  person  that  he  was  mistaken 
about  himself  and  his  will,  and  his  conception  of  the 
highest  good ;  who  knows  but  what  more  careful  reflection 
might  show  him  that  such  a  life  cannot  be  good  and  the  final 
goal  of  his  own  will  ?  We  can  hardly  deny  that  conversions 
have  actually  taken  place.  Shall  we  say  that  moral  preach- 
ing alone  can  produce  these  results,  and  that  moral  philosophy 
cannot  ?  Well,  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  possible  to  draw 
a  sharp  line  of  separation  between  them.  The  preacher  can 
scarcely  hope  to  influence  any  one  without  appealing  to  his 
insight.  And  why  should  not  the  impartial  presentation  of 
the  relations  existing  between  conduct  and  welfare  prove  to 
be  an  effective  sermon,  even  though  —  or  rather  let  us  say, 
just  because  —  it  does  not  assume  the  form  of  moralizing 
exhortation  ? 

But  should  any  one  still  hold  the  view  that  moral  philoso- 
phy is  not  only  fruitless,  but  dangerous  and  harmful^  on  the 
ground  that  the  forces  regulating  life,  custom  and  conscience, 
are  weakened  by  speculations  concerning  their  origin,  import, 
and  validity,  we  should  reply :  In  the  first  place,  such  reflec- 
tions are  not  produced  by  philosophy,  but,  conversely,  philoso- 
phy is  produced  by  these  inevitable  reflections.  Reflection  on 
human  conduct  and  judgment  is  inevitable.  Whenever  there 
is  any  controversy  concerning  a  concrete  case,  concerning  the 
Tightness  or  wrongness  of  an  act,  a  judgment,  or  an  institu- 
tion, we  are  compelled  to  go  back  to  principles  which  will 
decide  the  case.  Moral  philosophy  is  nothing  but  a  radical 
attempt  to  discover  ultimate  principles  by  which  to  determine 


4. 


28 


INTRODUCTION 


NATURE    AND  FUNCTION  OF  ETHICS 


29 


I 


the  value  of  things,  in  so  far  as  these  depend  upon  the  human 
will.     Secondly,  it  is  especially  necessary  that  our  age  reach 
some  conclusion  concerning  these  principles.     The  present  is 
characterized  by  a  strong  desire  to  reject  a  priori  all  the  old 
accepted  truths.    There  are  many  symptoms  of  this  desire : 
think  of  the  avidity  with  which  Friederich  Nietzsche's  ora- 
cular utterances  concerning  the  necessary  transformation  of 
all  values  (J)ie  Umwertung  alter  Werte)  are  received  by  the 
vouno-,  as  well  as  of  the  violent  condemnation  by  the  social 
democracy  of  all  existing  political  and  social  institutions.     A 
passionate  mania  for  the  new  and  unheard-of,  in  thought,  in 
morals,  and  in  modes  of  life,  has  taken  hold  of  our  times.     It 
is  utterly  useless  to  appeal  to  authority  and  tradition  ;  this 
mania  is  nothing  but  an  outbreak  of  free  individual  thought, 
which  has  been  repressed  so  long,  and  made  distrustful  by 
coercion ;  it  is  the  reaction  against  the  school,  which  forced 
men  not  to  think,  but  to  memorize,  against  the  church,  which 
asked  them  not  to  think,  but  to  believe.     These  are  the  symp- 
toms of  the  Aufklarung,  the  Aufklarung  which  was  long  since 
reported  dead  ;  it  has  come  back  to  life  and  has  taken  hold 
of  the  masses,  of  the  young  men  especially,  of  course ;  they 
want  to  do  their  own  thinking  and  mould  their  lives,  and  not 
to  be  governed  blindly  by  the  traditional  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions of  others.     And  to  this  they  have  a  perfect  right ;  it  is 
the  fundamental  right  and  highest  duty  of  man  to  think  his 
own   thoughts   and  to  act   his  own   acts:   independent  self- 
determination  is  the  royal  prerogative  of  the  mind.    Nothing 
will  avail  here  but  free,  unbiassed  thought.     It  will  be  tlie 
business  of  ethics  to  invite  the  doubter  and  the  inquirer  to 
assist  in  the  common  effort  to  discover  fixed  principles  which 
shall  help  the  judgment  to  understand  the  aims  and  problems 
of  life.    It  will  not  tell  him  :  This  shalt  thou  do,  but  will  inves- 
tigate with  him  the  question  :  What  art  thou  striving  after, 
what  are  thy  true  ideals,  not  merely  thy  temporary  moods 
and  whims  ?    Perhaps  he  will  then  find  that  much  of  what 


he  was  about  to  cast  aside,  as  a  mere  command  of  caprice, 
is  rooted  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  and  consequently  also 
in  his  own  will.^ 

1  [On  the  Problem  and  Methods  of  Ethics,  the  Relation  of  Ethics  to  other 
Sciences,  and  other  introductory  matter,  see  Sidgwick,  The  Methods  of  Ethics, 
chap.  I.-IL,  pp.  1-24;  Stephen,  The  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  I.,  pp.  1-40;  Schur- 
man,  The  Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism^  chap.  I.,  pp.  1-37  ;  Muirhead,  Elements 
of  Ethics,  chaps.  I.-III.,  pp.  1-39  ;  Mackenzie,  Manual  of  Ethics,  chaps.  I.-II.,  pp. 
1-31,  Appendix  B,  pp.  324-328;  Hyslop,  The  Elements  of  Ethics,  ch&p.  I.,  pp. 
1-17;  Seth,  A  Study  of  Ethical  Principles,  chaps.  I.-IIL,  pp.  1-35;  Ho ff ding, 
Ethikf  I.-IV.,  pp.  1-54;  Wundt,  Ethik,  Introduction,  pp.  1-17  (English  transla- 
tion, pp.  1-20) ;  Dorner,  Das  menschliche  Handeln,  Introduction,  pp.  1-23 ;  Sim- 
mel,  Einleitung  in  die  Moralwissenschaft,  vol.  I.,  Preface  ;  Miinsterberg,  Ursprung 
der  Sittlichkeit,  Introduction,  pp.  1-10;  Runze,  Ethik,  vol.  I.,  pp.  1-16,  which  con- 
tains many  excellent  bibliographical  references ;  Marion,  Lemons  de  morale,  chap.  I. 
—  Tk.] 


BOOK    I 


OUTLINES    OF    A   HISTORY  OF  THE   CONCEPTIONS 
OF   LIFE   AND   MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


Ita  quadam  non  verhorum  sed  rerum  eloquentia  contrariorium 
oppositione  seculi  pulchritudo  componitur. 

AUGUSTINUS. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE  AND  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  AMONG 

THE  GREEKS 

I  SHALL  precede  my  exposition  of  ethics  with  an  historical 
survey  of  the  development  of  the  conception  of  life  {Lehens- 
anschauung)  and  moral  philosophy.  I  shall  confine  my 
attention  to  the  historical  phenomena  which  are  still  directly 
influencing  the  life  of  the  Western  nations.  No  one  will 
reach  a  clear  and  distinct  knowledge  of  the  mixed  and 
often  confused  conceptions  and  aspirations  of  our  age  who 
does  not  pursue  the  great  tributaries  which  form  the  stream 
of  our  moral  civilization  to  their  sources. 

The  previous  history  of  our  morality  and  theory  of  life 
divides  itself  into  three  great  periods.  The  first  embraces  the 
development  of  the  ancient  world  to  its  conversion ;  the  sec- 
ond, the  Christian  development  with  its  two  halves,  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  old  world  and  mediaeval  Christianity  ;  the  third, 
the  development  of  modern  times,  which  has  not  yet  come  to 

an  end. 

The  ancient  world's  view  of  life  is  na^ve-naturalistic :  the 
perfection  of  human  nature  in  civilization  is  the  absolute 
goal.  The  Christian  conception  is  supranaturalistic ;  turnmg 
away  from  civilization,  it  demands  the  death  of  the  natural 
man  and  his  impulses,  in  order  that  a  new,  spiritual  man 
may  arise.  The  modern  theory  of  life  is  not  so  consistent 
and  self-contained  ;  it  is  influenced  by  both  of  these  opposmg 
tendencies.  The  naturalistic  tendency  predominates ;  the  dawn 
of  the  modern  period  is  marked  by  the  revival  of  the  ancient 

3 


I. 

/ 


34 


•ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE   GREEK   CONCEPTION 


85 


m 


i 


:;'  t; 


pagan  conception  of  life  (the  so-called  Renaissance).  Still, 
the  modern  view  of  life  contains  many  essential  elements  of 
the  Christian  conception  of  life;  and  the  supranaturalistic 
tendency  forms  an  undercurrent  in  it,  or  runs  parallel  with  it. 
Three  groups  of  moral-philosophical  systems^  differing  in 
form  and  contents,  correspond  to  the  different  conceptions  of 

life. 

Greek  ethics  proceeds  from  the  fact  of  striving  and  acting. 
It  asks:  What  is  the  final  goal,  and  how  can  it  be  reached? 
The  goal  is  the  highest  good  ;  and  hence  the  problem  is  :  to 
determine  the  nature  of  the  highest  good,  and  to  indicate  the 
way  to  its  attainment.  Inasmuch  as  the  highest  good  consists 
in  a  form  of  human  life,  or  presupposes  it  as  the  means  of  its 
realization,  Greek  ethics  essentially  assumes  the  form  of  a 
doctrine  of  virtues  :  it  describes  the  perfect  man  in  his  differ- 
ent phases. 

Christian  ethics  makes  the  fact  of  moral  judgment  its  starting- 
point.  Human  strivings  and  acts  are  objects  of  judgment; 
the  predicates  good  and  bad  are  applied  to  them.  QAnd  they 
are  thus  judged  not  only  by  man,  but,  according  to  the  Chris- 
tian conception,  above  all  by  God,  the  highest  law-giver  and 
judge.  Christian  ethics,  therefore,  inquires :  What,  according 
to  God's  commandment,  is  duty,  and  what  is  sin  ?  It  is  a  doc- 
trine of  duty  and  as  such  does  not  instruct  us  how  to  pro- 
mote individual  and  social  welfare,  but  sets  up  a  moral 
law,  the  application  of  which  necessitates  interpretation  and 

casuistry. 
^  What  was  said  of  the  modern  conception  of  life  is  true  of 
modern  ethics :  it  is  influenced  by  the  two  preceding  stages 
of  development,  and  does  not  therefore  exhibit  a  thorough- 
going uniformity.  It  is  as  a  whole  —  a  few  theological  sys- 
tems apart  —  more  closely  connected  with  Greek  ethics. 
Still,  the  Christian  influence  is  everywhere  recognizable.  We 
notice  it  in  the  form  of  the  science :  modern  ethics  is  largely 
a  doctrine  of  duties.    We  notice  it  also  in  the  matter ;  thus. 


for  example,  duties  towards  others  usually  occupy  the  most 
important  place  among  the  duties,  while  in  Greek  etliics  em- 
phasis is  laid  upon  the  virtues  and  duties  which  tend  to  the 
perfection  of  individual  life.  And  when  the  highest  good  is 
discussed,  the  good  of  the  individual  is  not  first  thought  of, 
as  was  the  case  in  Greek  ethics,  but  the  good  of  the  commun- 
ity. The  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  Christianity  has 
made  the  keystone  of  its  theory  of  the  universe  and  life,  even 
permeates  the  thoughts  of  those  who  know  nothing  of  it  or  do 
not  want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  Even  the  men  of 
1789  cannot  deny  their  relation  to  Christianity.  They  destroy 
the  church,  but  the  notion  of  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  — - 
altered  though  it  be  —  influences  them  also ;  for  where  else 
do  these  ideas  of  the  freedom,  equality,  and  fraternity  of  all 
men  and  all  nations  come  from  ? 

1.  The  moral  philosophical  reflections  of  the  Greeks  ^  start 
from  the  question :  What  is  the  ultimate  end  of  all  striving 
(to   reXo';),   or   what   is   the   highest    good?     It   necessarily 

1  There  is  no  dearth  of  elaborate  treatments  of  the  subject.  Besides  Zeller's 
History  of  Greek  Philosophy,  we  may  mention  :  the  thorough  work  of  K.  Kostlin, 
Die  Ethik  des  klassischen  Altertums,  Part  I.,  1887  (to  Plato)  ;  Luthardt,  Die 
antike  Ethik,  1887  ;  Th.  Ziegler,  Die  Ethik  der  Griechen  und  Rdmer,  1881.  An 
excellent  work  on  the  ethical  conceptions  of  the  Greek  people  is  L.  Schmidt's 
Die  Ethik  der  aJten  Griechen,  2  vols.,  1882.  A  good  survey  of  the  history  of 
ethics  in  general  is  given  by  H.  Sidgwick,  Outline  of  a  History  of  Ethics,  1886  ; 
a  detailed  account  of  the  most  important  movements,  by  P.  Janet,  Histoire  de  la 
philosophic  morale  et  politique,  2  vols.,  1885.  (See  also  Wundt,  Ethik,  Part  II.,  The 
Development  of  the  Moral  Conceptions  of  the  Universe,  pp.  270-433 ;  English 
translation,  vol.  II. ;  J.  Seth,  A  Study  of  Ethical  Principles,  Part  I.,  The  Moral 
Ideal,  pp.  77-249;  Watson,  Hedonistic  Theories  from  Aristippus  to  Spencer; 
Hyslop,  Elements  of  Ethics,  chap.  II.,  The  Origin  and  Development  of  Ethical 
Problems,  pp.  18-89  ;  Calderwood,  Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy,  pp.  318-369  ; 
Eucken,  Die  Lehensanschauungen  der  grossen  Denker.  The  first  two  chapters  of 
Jodl's  Geschichte  der  Ethik  in  der  neuern  Philosophic,  vol.  I.,  pp.  1-85,  give  a  sur- 
vey of  the  history  of  ethics  down  to  the  beginning  of  modern  times.  Martineau's 
Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  2  vols.,  discusses  some  of  the  most  important  systems. 
See  also  the  histories  of  Greek  and  General  Philosophy  which  are  mentioned  in 
Thilly's  translation  of  Weber's  History  of  Philosophy ,  pp.  8-16.  For  bibliogranhies 
on  particular  thinkers,  see  the  standard  histories  of  philosophy,  especially  Uber- 
weg,  Erdmann,  Windelbaud,  Weber,  all  of  which  have  been  translated.  — Tk.] 


36 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


suggests  itself  to  the  agent  when  he  reflects  upon  his  con- 
duct.    Aristotle,  the  founder  of  ethics  as  a  systematic  science, 
gives  us  the  following  lucid  exposition  of  the  subject,  at  the 
beginning  of  his  Nicomachean  Ethics}     Every  art,  and  every 
scientific  inquiry,  and  similarly  every  action  and  purpose,  aims 
at   some   good.     As   there    are    various    actions,   arts,   and 
sciences,  it  follows  that  the  ends  and  goods  are  also  various. 
Thus  health  is  the  end  of  medicine,  a  vessel  of  shipbuilding, 
victory  of  strategy,  and  wealth  of  domestic  economy.     But 
certain  arts  are  subordinated  to  other  arts  ;  the  art  of  making 
bridles  works  for  horsemanship,  the  latter  for  strategy,  and 
so  others  for  others.     But  inasmuch  as  the  end  of  the  lead- 
ing art  embraces  the  ends  of  the  subordinate  arts,  and  since 
.the  latter  are  desired  for  the  sake  of  the  former,  there  must, 
if  our  desires  are  not  to  be  idle  and  futile,  be  an  ultimate 
goal  or  good  which  is  not  in  turn  a  means,  but  is  desired  for 
its  own  sake,  all  other  things  being  desired  for  the  sake  of 
it.     What  is  this  highest  of  all  practical  goods  (rt  to  irdvT(ov 
uKporarov  tmv  irpaKTwv  a^aOwv)  ? 

As  to  its  name,  he  continues,  there  is  a  general  agreement. 
The  masses  and  the  cultured  classes  agree  in  calling  it  hap- 
piness ;  it  is  happiness  (evBaifiovla)  or  welfare  (ro  ev  fr>  kuI 
ev  7rpdTT€Lv).  But  in  what  does  happiness  consist?  Here 
the  views  begin  to  diverge.  The  masses  define  it  as  pleas- 
ure, or  wealth,  or  honor,  or  something  similar;  different 
people  give  different  definitions  of  it,  and  often  the  same 
person  gives  different  definitions  of  it  at  different  times ;  for 
when  a  person  has  been  ill,  health,  when  he  is  poor,  wealth 
is  the  highest  good.  Cultivated  people,  however,  the  phil- 
osophers   {ol  x^P^€VT€^),  define    it    as  virtue   and    also   as 

philosophy. 

We  are  perhaps  justified  in  saying  that  Aristotle  exag- 
gerates the  differences  of  opinion  with  respect  to  the  highest 
good ;  in  the  last  analysis  the  Greek  people  and  their  moral 

1  See  Welldon's  translation  of  Aristotle's  Ethics. 


THE   GREEK  CONCEPTION 


37 


philosophers  had  essentially  the  same  conception  of  the 
nature  of  happiness. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  translating  the  word  evSaifjLovia  by 
the  term  happiness  (Gluckseligkeit).  We  thereby  make  it  a 
matter  of  feeling.  The  Greek  word  does  not  connote  a 
subjective  state  of  feeling,  but  rather  an  objective  form  of 
life  :  evBaificov  (with  which  dyadoBaifMcov,  KUKoBaificov,  are  con- 
trasted) is  the  man  who  is  blessed  with  a  good  BaifKov  and 
therefore  with  a  good  lot  in  life,  for  Balfxtov  signifies  the  god- 
head who  apportions  to  men  their  fates.  Now,  what  is  the 
Greek  conception  of  a  happy  lot  or  fate  ? 

I  cannot  describe  it  more  briefly  and  more  forcibly  than  by 
calling  to  mind  the  well  known  anecdote  of  the  meeting  of 
Solon  and  Croesus  which  is  narrated  by  Herodotus.^  It  admir- 
ably contrasts  the  Hellenic  conception  of  what  is  a  good  life 
with  that  of  the  barbarians.  After  showing  Solon  through 
his  treasury,  the  king  addresses  him  as  follows :  "  0  stranger 
from  Athens,  we  have  heard  much  of  your  wisdom  and 
travels,  we  have  been  told  that  you  have  visited  many  coun- 
tries, in  the  pursuit  of  philosophy,  for  the  sake  of  study  (deayplr}^ 
€V€Ka).  Now,  I  should  like  to  know  whether  you  have  ever  seen 
a  man  whom  you  regarded  as  the  happiest  of  all  (oX^LcoraTOf;).^^ 
But  he  asked  him,  expecting  that  Solon  would  call  him,  the 
king,  the  happiest  of  all  men.  Solon,  however,  did  not  wish 
to  flatter  him,  but  spoke  the  truth :  "  0  King,  the  Athenian 
Tellos."  The  king  was  surprised,  and  asked:  "Why  do 
you  esteem  Tellos  happier  than  all  others?"  Solon  an- 
swered :  "  Tellos  lived  at  a  time  when  the  city  was  prosper- 
ing ;  he  had  beautiful  and  good  children,  and,  above  all,  lived 
to  see  his  grandchildren,  and  all  of  them  were  preserved  to 
him ;  he  was,  for  our  conditions,  in  good  circumstances,  and 
finally,  he  suffered  a  glorious  death ;  at  Eleusis,  in  a  battle 
between  the  Athenians  and  their  neighbors,  he  succeeded  in 
repelling  the  enemy  after  a  gallant   fight,  and  met  a  most 

1  I.,  30. 


38 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  rillLOSOPHY 


beautiful  death.  xAnd  the  Athenians  buried  him  where  he  fell, 
at  public  expense,  and  greatly  honored  him."  But  when 
the  king  received  an  equally  unsatisfactory  answer  to  the 
question  whom  Solon  would  regard  as  the  happiest  man 
after  Tellos  —  Solon,  as  we  know,  mentions  two  unknown 
Argive  youths,  who  died  suddenly,  after  having  done  their 
mother  an  honorable  service  —  Croesus  could  no  longer  re- 
strain himself :  "  And  is  our  happiness  (evhac^ovia)  absolutely 
nothing  in  your  eyes,  that  you  place  it  after  that  of  those  pri- 
vate persons  ? "  Solon  gave  an  evasive  answer  :  "  Envious  are 
the  gods  and  impatient,  and  many  things  are  experienced  in 
the  long  time  which  we  do  not  desire  ;  and  many  sufferings. 
A  human  life  may  last  seventy  years,  which  makes,  not 
counting  the  intercalary  months,  25,200  days,  but  if  we  count 
these,  26,250  days.  Of  all  these  days  no  two  are  alike,  there- 
fore I  cannot  call  you  happy  until  I  know  that  your  end  has 

been  a  happy  one." 

I  call  it  an  evasive  answer;  the  well  known  pragmatic 
use  which  Herodotus  makes  of  the  anecdote  necessitates  such 
a  reply. 

The  true  answer  to  the  question  of  the  king  would  have 
been  as  follows :  0  King,  what  we  Hellenes  and  what  you 
here,  whom  we  call  barbarians,  call  happiness  is  not  the 
same.  You  regard  as  a  happy  lot  to  have  much  and  to 
enjoy  much,  while  for  us  it  means  to  live  nobly,  to  act  nobly, 
and  to  die  nobly.  When  a  man  has  our  good  wishes,  we  say 
to  him :  Act  nobly  {ev  TrpuTTecv)  ;  while  you  would  have  to 
say :  May  good  things  happen  to  you  {ev  7rao-%6n/).  Hence 
I  have  called  Tellos  a  happy  man.  He  did  not  enjoy  the 
luxury  of  a  royal  household,  but  he  possessed  what  a  citizen 
in  a  Hellenic  town  needs.  He  was  a  capable  man,  and 
governed  his  affairs  wisely;  he  had  beautiful  and  good 
children,  his  city  honored  him,  and  his  name  was  not  un- 
known to  its  enemies.     That  is   our  idea   of  a  happy  man. 

This  is  Avhat  the  story  of   Croesus  and  Solon,  which  cir- 


THE   GREEK   CONCEPTION 


39 


culated  among  the  Hellenes,  seems  to  me  to  signify;  it 
expresses  the  popular  Greek  conception  of  the  difference 
between  the  Hellenic  and  barbarian  view  of  life.  According 
to  the  latter,  the  value  of  life  consists  in  the  possession  of 
wealth  and  enjoyment;  according  to  the  former,  virtuous 
activity  or  active  virtue  alone  makes  life  worth  living.  For- 
tune may  crown  it  with  a  beautiful  death.  —  The  same  idea  of 
the  difference  between  the  Hellenic  and  barbaric  conception 
of  life  is  brought  out  in  the  legendary  epitaph,  transmitted 
in  various  forms,  which  the  Greeks  dedicated  to  the  legendary 
King  Sardanapalus  :    Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  te-morrow  we 

shall  die. 

2.  Greek  moral  philosophy/  consists  essentially  in  the 
analysis  and  conceptual  formulation  of  the  popular  Greek 
ideal  of  a  perfect  life.  I  shall  attempt  to  show  this  by  em- 
phasizing the  chief  phases  of  its  history. 

The  real  scientific  treatment  of  moral  philosophy  dates 
from  Socrates.^  Greek  philosophy  began  with  speculations 
upon  the  external  world,  upon  the  form,  origin,  and  primal 
elements  of  the  universe.  Socrates  refuses  to  consider  these 
things,  he  makes  the  affairs  of  human  life  the  objects  of  his 
reflections;  these  he  regards  as  more  important  and  more 
capable  of  investigation.  The  change  represented  by  Socratic 
thought  connects  itself  with  the  general  changes  in  the  life  of 
the  Greek  people.  Greek  life,  which  was  centred  at  Athens 
in  the  fifth  century,  tended  away  from  the  old  simplicity  and 
constraint  towards  a  fuller  and  freer  development.  All  the 
arts  of  civilization  flourished  on  the  soil  of  the  new  metropol- 
itan life.  Rational  arts,  based  upon  theories,  gradually  took 
the  place  of  the  traditional  handicraft ;  geometry  and  astron- 
omy, music  and  architecture,  gymnastics  and  medicine,  strategy 
and  rhetoric,  became  objects  of  scientific  reflection  and  sys- 

1  [For  Socrates,  see :  Xenophon's  Memorabilia^  translation  in  Bohn's  Library ; 
Plato's  Protufforas,  Apology,  Crito,  Phaedo,  Si/mposium,  etc. ;  Aristotle's  3/eta;}A^s- 
ics,  I.,  6.  See  also  for  Socrates  and  the  following  systems  the  references 
mentioned,  p.  35.  —  Tr.] 


40 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


tematic  treatment.  Excellence  or  efficiency  (aperrf)  in  these 
arts  now  became  a  matter  not  merely  of  natural  skill  and 
practice,  but  of  theoretical  knowledge  :  whoever  desires  to  ac- 
quire the  former  must  possess  the  latter.  —  Is  not  this  true  of 
all  excellence,  is  it  not  true  also  of  the  excellence  of  the  citi- 
zen and  statesman,  nay,  of  the  excellence  of  man  in  general  ? 
According  to  the  traditional  view,  civic  and  human  excel- 
lence is  innate:  whoever  comes  into  the  world  as  a  good 
man  and  as  the  descendant  of  good  men,  and  is  reared  among 
the  good,  possesses  it  as  a  gift  of  the  gods  {evBalficov),  The 
enlightened  ones  of  the  new  period  gradually  convinced  them- 
selves that  all  excellence,  moral  and  political  no  less  than 
technical,  is  the  result  of  instruction  and  education :  virtue 
can  be  taught,  that  is  the  new  conception  which  the  Sophists 
first  advanced  in  systematic  form.  "  If  you  associate  with 
me,"  Protagoras  promises  the  young  man  in  the  Platonic 
dialogue  bearing  his  name,  "  on  the  very  day  you  will  return 
home  a  better  man  than  you  came."  And  upon  being  asked 
by  Socrates  in  what  he  would  become  better,  he  adds :  "  If 
he  comes  to  me,  he  will  learn  that  which  he  comes  to  learn. 
And  this  is  prudence  in  affairs  private  as  well  as  public ;  he 
will  learn  to  order  his  own  house  in  the  best  manner,  and 
he  will  be  able  to  speak  and  act  for  the  best  in  the  affairs 

of  the  state." 

By  many  of  his  contemporaries  Socrates  was  looked  upon 
as  one  of  the  Sophists.  Not  altogether  unjustly  ;  he  differed 
from  the  latter :  he  did  not  regard  himself  as  a  possessor  of 
wisdom,  and  did  not  acquire  money  through  public  lectures  ; 
but  in  his  views  he  had  much  in  common  with  them.  Above 
all,  he  believed  with  them  that  excellence  or  virtue  depends 
upon  insight  and  may  be  taught.  This  proposition  is  em- 
phasized in  all  the  accounts,  in  Xenophon,  Plato,  and  Aris- 
totle, as  characteristic  of  his  point  of  view :  Socrates,  so  Aris- 
totle declares,  considered  the  virtues  to  be  forms  of  reason.^ 

1  Nic.  Eth.,  VI.,  13. 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


41 


The  same  is  true  of  human  excellence  as  such :  without 
knowledge  no  virtue ;  and  conversely :  right  conduct  neces- 
sarily depends  upon  the  proper  insight,  no  one  knowingly 
and  willingly  does  wrong  (^ovBeU  ckodv  dfjuaprdvec).  If  a  man 
knows  the  right  goal  and  the  right  path,  he  will  necessarily 
follow  it;  his  going  astray  and  also  his  moral  trangression  are 
always  the  result  of  error,  as  the  Greek  word  dfULprdpeiv 
indicates.  This  is  especially  true  of  civic  virtue;  hence 
Socrates  condemns  the  Athenian  state.  The  democratic 
constitution  rested  upon  the  tacit  assumption  that  political 
excellence  was  the  inheritance,  so  to  speak,  of  every  citizen. 
Socrates  is  constantly  attacking  this  view  in  arguments  like 
the  following :  Do  you  not,  when  you  wish  to  steer  a  ship, 
look  around  for  a  man  who  has  learned  and  understands 
the  art  of  navigation  ?  And  when  a  man  is  sick  you  send 
for  some  one  who  understands  the  art  of  medicine  ?  But 
when  it  comes  to  governing  the  city  or  the  state,  you  choose 
any  one  for  whom  the  lot  may  decide. 

Hence  knowledge,  scientific  knowledge  of  that  which  is 
really  good,  and  of  the  means  of  acquiring  it,  is  the  great 
condition  of  all  excellence  and  virtue.  That  is  the  view 
upon  which  Socrates  bases  himself  and  which  places  him  at 
the  head  of  the  Greek  moral  philosophers.  It  is  the  funda- 
mental conception  common  to  his  successors.  The  sage 
alone,  the  man  who  has  scientific  knowledge  —  in  this  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  agree  —  is  virtuous 
and  happy  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term.  The  wise  man 
alone  is  capable  of  governing  the  state  ;  if  we  are  to  have  a 
perfect  state,  kings  must  either  become  wise  men,  or  wise 
men  kings,  to  quote  the  well-known  saying. 

3.  Socrates  saw  the  necessity  of  a  science  of  right  con- 
duct and  right  government,  but  he  did  not  solve  the 
problem  which  he  proposed  ;  he  left  it  to  his  pupils  to  create 
the  sciences  of  ethics  and  politics.      Plato  ^  first  undertook 

1  [See  the  Dialogues  of  Plato,  Jowett's  translation,  especially,  TheaetetuSt 
Phaedo,  Philebus,  Gorqias,  Republic.  —  Tr.] 


42 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


43 


the  task.    Its  accomplishment  seemed  all  the  more  urgent, 
the  weaker  the  old  foundations  of  morality  were  becoming. 
With  the  entriince  of  the  Greek  people  upon  the  period  of 
eiiliglitenment,  the    old    civic   respectability    and    morality 
rapidly  declined.    The  younger  Sophisls  — as  Plato  portrays 
them  in  the  persons  of  Callicles  and  Thrasymachus  (in  the 
Gorgias  and   the   Republic)  —  iovm\x\^iQ^   the   facts   into   a 
theory:   there  is  no   objective  difference   between  good  and 
bad,  it  does  not  inhere  in  the  nature  of  the  things,  but  is  a 
mere  matter  of  convention  and  caprice.     The  sanction  of  cus- 
tom and  law  rests  upon  fear  and  superstition,  which  restrain 
the  stronger  from  making  use  of  their  natural  superiority  ;  or 
they  are  another  means,  in  the  hands  of  the  mighty  themselves, 
to  strengthen  their  power.     The  enlightened  one  knows  it  and 
acts  accordingly;   he  obeys  law  and  custom  when   they  are 
conducive  to  his  interests,  he  breaks  them  when  they  thwart 
his  plans,  and  when  he  can  do  so  with  impunity.^ 

Plato  undertakes  to  overcome  this  enlightenment,  not 
from  without,  but  from  within,  by  a  deeper  philosophy. 
This  is,  indeed,  the  only  remedy:  half-enlightenment,  pseudo- 
enlightenment,  can  be  destroyed  only  by  complete  enlighten- 
ment. To  fetter  thought,  to  oppose  it  with  authorities, 
is  utterly  useless,  nay,  simply  makes  matters  worse.  Plato 
therefore  explicitly  places  himself  upon  the  standpoint  of 
reason,  which  the  Sophists,  too,  claim  to  occupy.  With 
Socrates  he  recognizes  the  necessity  of  basing  human  and 
civic  virtue  upon  knowledge.  Virtue  without  knowledge, 
virtue  resting  solely  upon  education,  habit,  authority,  correct 
opinion,  is  a  blind  groping;  it  may  accidentally  find  the 
right  path,  but  there  is  no  certainty  of  its  doing  so.  Only 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  the  good  can  make  man's  willing 
correct,  certain,  and  steady. 

1  Laas  has  given  us  a  good  description  of  this  sceptical-nihilistic  sophistical 
philosophy,  which  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  producing  and  influencing  the 
Platonic  ethics,  as  its  antithesis,  in  the  introduction  to  the  second  volume  of  his 
Jdealismus  und  Positivismns. 


But  is  there  such  a  thing  as  objective  goodness  and  right  ? 
This  was  denied  by  Callicles  and  his  companions :  that  is 
good  which  happens  to  please,  and  that  is  right  which  we 
have  the  power  of  enforcing.  The  aim  of  Plato's  entire 
philosophy,  is  to  prove,  in  opposition  to  this,  the  proposition: 
The  good  and  right  is  something  absolutely  independent 
of  opinions,  something  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  things 
themselves.     What  is  the  good  and  right  as  such  ? 

The  Platonic  philosophy  gives  an  answer  to  this  question 
that  far  transcends  the  horizon  of  the  healthy  common-sense 
which  we  find  in  Socrates.  The  good  is  nothing  but  the 
world,  or  reality  itself.  But,  Plato  immediately  adds  :  reality 
as  it  is  in  itself  that  is,  in  idea.  That  which  common-sense 
regards  as  the  real  reality,  the  sum  total  of  these  sensuous, 
particular  things,  is  not  the  good ;  the  world  of  sense  is  full 
of  imperfections.  But  it  is  not  the  true  reality,  it  has  no 
being  in  the  real  sense  of  the  term ;  its  being  is  mixed  with 
non-being;  it  is  in  a  state  of  constant  growth  and  decay. 
The  true  reality,  on  the  other  hand,  of  which  being  can 
really  be  predicated,  is  an  absolutely  existing,  absolutely 
unitary,  ideal,  spiritual,  being,  and  this  is  nothing  but  the 
good  itself,  or  God.  —  God  is  both  the  absolutely  good  and 
the  absolutely  real,  says  scholastic  philosophy,  following  in 
the  footsteps  of  Plato. 

Now  the  question  arises,  What  is  good  and  right  for  a 
particular  being?  This  will  naturally  depend  upon  his  re- 
lation to  the  All-Good  and  All-Real ;  or,  stated  in  different 
language,  the  value  of  a  particular  element  of  reality  can 
be  determined  only  by  its  significance  within  the  whole  of 
reality.  The  world  is  not,  like  a  bad  poem,  full  of  super- 
fluous episodes,  but  the  unitary  realization  of  an  idea,  the 
idea  of  the  good,  which  unfolds  itself  in  a  variety  of  qualities 
or  ideas,  and  so  forms  a  cosmos  of  ideas,  an  intelligent 
organism  in  which  every  element  of  reality,  like  every  scene 
in   a   good    drama,    occupies   the    position   of    a   necessary 


I'lfi 

1: 


44  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

member.  So,  too,  the  idea  of  man  must  be  defined  by  his 
place  in  the  cosmos,  if  we  are  to  reach  a  knowledge  of  what 
man  is  in  reality,  or  in  idea.  If  the  philosopher,  the  dia- 
lectician, who  has  the  gift  of  seeing  things  in  their  logical 
relations,  succeeds  in  reaching  this  definition,  he  may  say 
that  he  has  objectively  defined  the  essence  of  goodness  and 

right. 

Thus  PUxto  brings   ethics    into  the   most    intimate   con- 

nection  with  metaphysics ;  he  makes  it  a  part  of  the  one 
unitary  science  of  the  real,  or  the  good. 

What  now  is  found  to  be  the  idea  of  man  in  the  idea  of 
the  universal  reality  ?     In  the  Tim(BU8,  of  which  parts  of  the 
Phoidrus  form  the  prelude,  Plato  has  made  the  most  elabo- 
rate attempt  to  explain  man's  place   in  the  cosmos.     The 
human  soul  is   derived  from  the  world-soul ;  it  is,  like  the 
latter,  a  mixture   of  two  elements;    on  the   one  hand,  it 
participates  in  the  real  reality,  in  the  world  of  ideas,  the 
world  of  existent  thoughts,  or  the  life  of  God ;  on  the  other, 
in  the  world   of  origin  and  decay,  in  the  corporeal  world. 
With  the  reason  (1/01)9),  it  belongs  to  the  world  of  ideas,  with 
the  animal  impulses  {iTnOvtilaL)  arising  from  its  union  with 
the  body,  it  belongs  to  the  corporeal  world.     These  two  dis- 
similar parts   or  phases   of  the   soul  are   connected  by  an 
intermediate  form :  Plato  calls  it  ^u/109  or  to  evfioecU^ ;  it 
embraces  the  higher,  nobler  impulses,  the  affections  of  the 
heart,  moral  indignation,  courage,  the  aspiring  love  of  honor, 
moral  awe ;  perhaps  the  Platonic  term  may  be  best  trans- 
lated by  our  word  will.     The  organization  of  the  inner  man 
is  made  visible  in  the  organization  of  the  outer  man ;  the 
head  is  the  seat  of  reason,  the  citadel  of  the  ruler ;  in  the 
breast  dwells  the  heart,  the  seat  of  the  affections,  as  common 
sense  looks  at  it ;  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  watch-house  in  which 
courage  and  anger  dwell,  ready  to  break  forth  at  the  beck 
of  the  ruler ;  under  the  diaphragm,  at  last,  are  situated  the 
organs  of  animal  desire,  the  organs  of  nutrition  and  repro- 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


45 


duction.  —  The  function  of  man  is  to  represent  a  cosmos  on 
the  small  scale  after  the  pattern  of  the  larger  cosmos :  as  the 
macrocosm  is  fashioned  into  beauty  and  order  by  the  ideal 
element,  so  the  microcosm  must  be  fashioned  into  proportion 
and  harmony,  order  and  beauty,  by  reason,  the  ideal  element 
peculiar  to  it. 

The  anthropological-ethical  application  of  this  metaphysical 
principle  of  the  science  of  the  good  is  made  in  the  dialogue 
on   the   State.     It  begins   with   a   discussion  of   the  notion 
of  the  "  just  man."     How  shall  we  define  a  just  man,  a  man 
who  realizes  the  idea,  the  natural  or  divine  vocation  of  man  ? 
He  is  one  in  whom  the  three  elements,  defined  above,  harmo- 
niously co-operate  to  perform  their  special  functions.     We 
thus  arrive  at  the  scheme  of  the  so-called  cardinal  virtues : 
wisdom  (ao^ia^,  courage  {avhpeia),  and  self-control  or  healthj- 
mindedness  (aco^poo-vvrj),  which  three  combined  give  us  justice 
{hcKaioavvrj},     A  man  is  wise,  in  whom  reason  realizes  its 
purpose,  the  knowledge  of  the  true  reality,  and  as  the  ruling 
principle  regulates  his   entire  life;   he  is  courageous  when 
the  will   does  its  work,  assisting   the   reason   in    governing 
and   bridling   the    irrational  element;  he  is  healthy-minded 
when  the  animal  impulses  peacefully  perform  their  functions, 
without  disquieting  and  disturbing  the  spirit.     Such  a  well- 
regulated  soul  deserves  to  be  called  a  just  soul ;  it  typifies 
human   nature,  or  the  idea  of  man.     In  it  the  exercise  of 
reason  forms  the  real,  essential  content  of  life;  reason  as 
such  consists  in  knowledge ;  perfect  knowledge,  however,  is 
philosophy,  that  is,  the  dialectical  re-creation  of  the  absolute 
ideal  reality  in  concepts.     The  other  elements  and  their  func- 
tions are  subordinate  to  it.     And  hence  we  may  say  :  Philo- 
sophy is  the  true  function,  the  highest  content  and  purpose, 

of  human  life. 

This  would  answer  the  question  concerning  objective  good- 
ness :  such  a  life  is  good  in  itself,  good  for  man,  not  accord- 
ing to  accidental  opinion  and  convention,  but  in  the  nature 


46 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


47 


I 

i 

1 


of  things,  in  which  philosophy  forms  the  central  purpose  to 
which  all  the  other  functions  and  actions  are  subordinated  as 

means. 

That  such  a  "  just "  life  is  at  the  same  time  a  happy  and 

desirable  life  hardly  seems  to  need  proof.  Just  as  the  sound- 
ness of  the  body  is  subjectively  experienced  as  good  health, 
disease  as  poor  health,  so  *'  justice,"  which  is  nothing  but  the 
health  of  the  soul,  or  the  state  expressing  its  true  nature, 
necessarily  procures  the  greatest  satisfaction.  And  so  the 
opposite  of  justice  (aScKla)  will  necessarily  be  the  greatest 
subjective  evil  for  a  man,  not  because  of  some  accidental 
effects,  like  punishment  and  disgrace,  but  on  account  of 
the  ugliness  which  characterizes  an  "unjust"  life  (wah7i' 
schaffen,  misshapen,  we  might  call  it,  employing  a  term 
peculiar  to  the  Northern  languages).  With  incomparable 
skill  Plato  portrays  the  life  of  such  a  "  misshapen  "  soul  and 
its  inner  discord  in  his  picture  of  the  tyrant,  who  satisfies  all 
his  desires  and  enjoys  the  privilege  —  which  those  illumi- 
nators envy  him  —  of  perpetrating  all  kinds  of  wrongs  and 
violent  deeds  with  impunity. 

Let  me  also  briefly  mention  that  the  same  fundamental 
traits  reappear  in  the  constitution  of  the  just  state,  man  on 
the  large  scale.  A  state  is  just  in  which  the  wise  rule,  the 
strong  and  courageous  (a  military  nobility)  disinterestedly 
and  submissively  serve  the  government,  and  finally,  the 
producing  classes  peacefully  and  modestly  perform  their 
tasks. 

We  see,  Plato  does  not  differ  very  radically  in  his  views 
from  the  popular  Greek  conception  of  justice  and  happiness. 
It  is  true,  he  emphasizes  the  element  of  knowledge  in  his 
scheme,  and  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  he  has  in  mind, 
the  speculative  knowledge  of  the  real  reality,  is,  of  course, 
something  wholly  foreign  to  the  popular  idea. 

We  must  not,  however,  lose  sight  of  another  fact.  Our 
exposition  of  Plato's  ethics  has  not  sufficiently  emphasized  a 


phase  of  his  conception  of  life  which  stands  out  quite  promi- 
nently in  many  dialogues,  alienation  from  the  world  (  Welt- 
flilchtigkeit)^  a  doctrine  which  differs  so  remarkably  from  the 
old  Greek  mode  of  thought,  and  approximates  the  Christian 
view.  Plato  does  not  always  adhere  to  the  conception,  out- 
lined above,  of  the  nature  of  man  as  a  spiritual-sensuous 
being,  but  often  manifests  a  strong  tendency  completely  to 
spiritualize  the  nature  of  man :  reason  constitutes  his  real 
essence  ;  the  animal  nature,  sensuality  and  desire,  is  an  acci- 
dental appendage,  which  drags  down  the  spirit,  and  of  which 
the  wise  man  strives  to  divest  himself.  God  is  pure  thought, 
free  from  desire  ;  to  be  like  him  is  the  highest  goal  of  human 
striving.  The  notions  of  pre-existence,  transmigration  of 
souls,  and  immortality  are  connected  with  this  idea;  this 
mundane  life  is  conceived  as  a  prison-house  from  which  the 
spirit  seeks  to  escape. 

It  is  evidently,  first  of  all,  his  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of 
pleasure  which  provokes  these  thoughts.     Callicles  and   his 
followers  make  the  satisfaction  of   the  desires   the   highest 
good,  while  Plato  sees  in  pleasure  something,  "a  trace  of 
which,"  as  we  read  in  the  Fhcedrus^  "  a  demon  has  added  to 
all  bad  things."     Hence  he  looks  upon  life  as  a  struggle  of 
reason  with  lust,  a  struggle  in  which  the  nobler  impulses  of 
the  heart  are  on  the  side  of  reason.     This  teaching  supplies 
the  moral  preacher  with  a  wonderful  weapon,  which  Plato 
himself  handles  with  great  force  and  skill,  and  we  ought  to 
make  a  more  extended  use  of  his  writings  ;  they  would  appeal 
more  powerfully   to   our  young  men  than  the   weak-kneed 
Cicero  ;  the  Republic  is  the  very  thing  for  young  people  whose 
thoughts  are  preoccupied  with  and  confused  by  Nietzsche's 
Ubermensch.     But  perhaps  it  is  also  possible  to  connect  this 
mode  of  thought  with   Plato's   personal   experiences.      His 
relations  with  his   contemporaries   were   not  friendly.     His 
native  city  gave  the  philosopher  no  opportunity  for  public 
activity,  as  he  understood  the  term.     That  he  did  not  always 


■A 


11 


48  ORIGINS  OF  MOKAL  PHILOSOPHY 

bear  his  isolation  with  equanimity  may  be  inferred  from  his 
harsh  criticism  of  the  persons  who  took  a  prominent  part  in 
public  life,  the  statesmen,  Sophists,  and  rhetoricians.  He  re- 
garded them  as  the  representatives  of  the  most  unworthy  art, 
the  art,  namely,  of  catering  to  the  whims  of  the  great  animal, 
called  Demos,  and  thus  acquiring  advantages  and  fame; 
whoever  interferes  with  their  schemes,  and  refuses  to  become 
a  party  to  their  crimes  is  doomed.  And  so  the  untimely 
philosopher,  « like  one  who,  in  the  storm  of  dust  and  sleet 
which  the  driving  wind  hurries  along,  retires  under  the 
shelter  of  a  wall,"  withdrew  from  public  life  and  sought 
refuge  in  the  solitude  of  the  Academy  ;  his  life  was  enriched 
and  blessed  by  the  contemplation  of  the  true  reality,  and  he 
looked  forward  to  his  deliverance  in  peace  and  good-will,  with 

bright  hopes.^ 

Thus  Plato,  like  every  honest  philosopher,  utilized  his  own 
personal  experiences  as  the  key  with  which  to  interpret 
human  life,  nay,  all  things  in  general.  Yet  he  was  too  much 
of  a  Greek  to  reject  this  natural-sensuous  world  altogether. 
He  was  a  pessimist  in  his  judgment  of  men,  but  he  remained 
an  optimist  in  his  judgment  of  man.  In  the  passage  of  the 
Republic  quoted  above,  he  adds  that  the  solitary  philosopher 
will  not  do  the  greatest  work  unless  he  find  a  state  suitable 
to  him ;  for  in  a  state  which  is  suitable  to  him  he  will  have 
a  larger  growth,  and  be  the  savior  of  his  country  as  well  as 

of  himself. 

4.  Aristotle,"  in  Dante's  words  « the  master  of  those  who 
know,"  "  the  eternal  prince  of  all  true  thinkers "  as  Comte 
calls  him  in  the  Catechisme  positiviste,  was  the  first  to  stake 
off  practical  philosophy  as  a  separate  field  of  knowledge  and 
to  discuss  it,  as  a  systematic  whole,  in  its  three  parts,  ethics, 
politics,  and  economics.     His  works  lack  the  wonderful  charm 

1  JiemUk,  496  D.                                                                  ,                ,  .•  „„h 

2  [Nicomachean  Ethics,  transl.  by  WelWon.  For  other  translations  and 
bibliography,  see  my  translation  of  Weber,  History  of  Phdosoph),  p.  104. 
uote4. — Tk.] 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


49 


of  the  Platonic  expositions,  but  we  are  compensated  for  this 
loss  by  a  wealth  of  great  thoughts.  I  shall  give  an  outline 
of  his  ethics  ;  in  the  main  it  follows  the  lines  marked  out  by 
the  Platonic  system. 

He  begins  with  the  question  concerning  the  highest  good, 
which  all  agree  to  designate  as  happiness  (^evSacfiovla)^  and 
finds,  by  means  of  one  of  those  Socratic  inductions  which  are 
so  common  in  his  writings,  that  it  must  consist  in  the  exercise 
of  the  specific  excellence  of  the  human  soul :  for,  as  with  a 
flute-player,  a  statuary,  or  any  artisan,  or  in  fact  anybody 
who  has  a  definite  function  and  action  (Jp^ov  re  koX  irpa^i^^y 
his  goodness  or  excellence  (jayaOov  koI  to  ei5)  seems  to  lie 
in  his  function,  so  it  would  seem  to  be  with  man,  if  indeed 
he  has  a  definite  function.     What,  then,  is  this  function  or 
action  of  man  ?    Aristotle  compares  man  with  organic  beings 
and  finds  that  he  shares  with  all  beings  the  vegetative  func- 
tions, and  with  all  animals  sensation  and  desire,  but  that  he 
alone  possesses  reason  (^t6  \6yov  e%oz/).     The  peculiar  func- 
tion of  man,  then,  is  an  activity  of  soul  in  accordance  with 
reason,  or  not  independently  of  reason  (^Irv^V'^  ivepyeia  Kara 
\6yov  rj  fjuT)  dvev  \6yov).     This  being  so,  the  good  of  man  is  an 
activity  of  soul  in  accordance  with  virtue,  or,  if  there  are 
more  virtues  than  one,  in  accordance  with  the  best  and  most 
complete  virtue.^ 

Now,  that  the  life  which  is  objectively  the  best  also  pro- 
cures the  greatest  subjective  satisfaction  necessarily  follows 
from  Aristotle's  great  psychological  generalization  :  all  un- 
impeded, successful  exercise  of  the  powers  natural  to  a  being 
is  accompanied  with  feelings  of  satisfaction.  The  limbs  take 
pleasure  in  the  movements,  the  eye  in  sight,  the  flute-player 
in  the  music,  the  orator  in  the  speech,  and  so  every  being  iu 
the  exercise  of  its  specific  function  :  hence  the  most  pleasura- 
ble thing  for  man  is  the  exercise  of  reason. 
At  the  conclusion  of  the  work  he  again  takes  up  the  sub- 

1  Nic.  Ethics,  Book  I.,  chap.  6.    "Welldou's  translatioa 


50 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


ject :  ^  Since  reason,  whether  it  be  divine  itself  or  the  most 
divine  part  of  our  being,  is  the  highest  function  of  man,  per- 
fect happiness  will  consist  in  the  exercise  of  that  which  is 
peculiar  to  it,  that  is,  theoretical  activity.     And  this  is  a  con« 
elusion  which  would  seem  to  agree  with  our  previous  argu- 
ments as  well  as  with  the  truth  itself.     For  of  all  activities 
contemplation  is   the   most  continuous   and  the  most  inde- 
pendent of  the  necessaries  of  life  ;  the  exercise  of  the  other 
faculties  is  dependent  upon  opportunity,  but  the  wise  man  is 
always  and  under  all   circumstances  capable  of   speculation 
himself.     It  alone  is  self-sufficient,  it  alone  has  its  end  in 
itself ;  all  practical  activities,  even  those  of  the   statesman 
and  general,  which  are  regarded  as  the  highest  and  most 
beautiful,  have  external  ends ;  contemplation  alone  is  not  ex- 
ercised for  the  sake  of  an  external  end.    It  is  also  admitted 
that  there  is  no  virtuous  activity  so  pleasant  as  philosophic 
reflection ;  at  all  events  it  appears  that  philosophy  possesses 
pleasures  of  wonderful  purity  and  certainty.     "  Hence  such 
a  life  may  seem  too  good  for  a  man.     He  will  enjoy  such  a 
life  not  in  virtue  of  his   humanity,  but  in  virtue   of   some 
divine  element  in  him.     If  then  the  reason  is  divine  in  com- 
parison with  the  rest  of  man's  nature,  the  life  which  accords 
with  reason  will  be  divine  in  comparison  with  human  life  in 
general.     Nor  is  it  right  to  follow  the  advice  of  people  who 
say  that  the  thoughts  of   men  should  not  be  too  high   for 
humanity,  or  the  thoughts  of  humanity  too  high  for  mortality ; 
for  a  man,  as  far  as  in  him  lies,  should  seek  immortality 
{aOavari^eLv)  and  do  all  in  his  power  to  live  in  accordance 
with  the  highest  part  of  his  nature." 

Who  does  not  feel  in  these  words  the  emotion  with  which 
the  usually  so  placid  thinker  expresses  his  deepest  life- 
experiences  ? 

To  be  sure,  the  purely  theoretical  life  is  unattainable  by 
man ;   God's  life  alone  consists  in  pure  thought.     In  man 

1  B.  X.,  chap.  7. 


i 


\ 


THE   GREEK   CONCEPTION 


51 


reason  is  inseparably  connected  with  the  functions  which  he 
possesses  in  common  with  the  animals  and  plants,  with  sen- 
sation and  desire,  with  nutrition  and  reproduction.  From 
this  it  follows  that  human  life  is  confronted  with  a  number 
of  problems,  which  may  be  characterized  in  general  as  the 
organization  of  the  lower  functions  by  reason  and  in  harmony 
with  the  ends  of  reason.  Thus  arise  the  so-called  ethical 
virtues  or  excellences,  which  are  distinguished  from  the  in- 
tellectual or  theoretical  virtues. 

There  will  therefore  be  as  many  ethical  virtues  as  there 
are  separate  spheres  of  problems  arising  from  the  sensuous 
side  of  human  nature.  Among  them  we  may  mention:  our 
attitude  to  the  animal  desires,  our  behavior  with  respect  to 
economic  commodities,  honor,  anger,  fear,  social  and  economic 
intercourse  with  men,  etc.  There  is  a  virtue  for  every  sphere. 
Virtuous  conduct  in  reference  to  the  satisfaction  of  animal 
desires  is  so-called  healthy-mindedness  {aa)(f)po<Tvvr]) ;  in  ref- 
erence to  wealth,  liberality  (iXev6epi6T7]<;) ;  in  reference  to 
honor,  high-mindedness  and  love  of  honor  (^eyaXoyjrvxia  and 
(piXoTLfila) ;  in  reference  to  danger,  courage  (avhpeCa)^  etc. 

Virtue,  as  language,  too,  suggests,  is  always  a  mean  be- 
tween two  extremes,  between  excess  and  deficiency.  Courage, 
for  example,  is  the  normal  state  in  regard  to  the  fearful, 
being  a  mean  between  the  state  of  the  coward  (Se^o?),  who 
stupidly  runs  away  from  danger,  and  the  state  of  the  fool- 
hardy man  (^Opaa-v^:),  who  blindly  rushes  into  it.  Temper- 
ance is  the  normal  habit  or  state  in  regard  to  sensuous 
pain,  being  a  mean  between  the  state  of  the  licentious  man 
(^aK6Xa<TTo<;)y  who  is  incapable  of  resisting  sensuous  feelings, 
and  the  state  which  we  might  call  unfeelingness  (apaia-Orfo-la), 
which,  however,  hardly  exists,  wherefore  language  has  no 
real  name  for  the  opposite  of  licentiousness ;  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  rest. 

The  normal  state  is  the  result  of  practice,  as  Aristotle  ex- 
pressly declares,  taking  issue  with  Socrates,  who  identified 


62  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  ethical  virtues  with  insight  or  prudence.  Prudence 
(d>p6vv<TL,:^  undoubtedly  also  plays  a  part  in  the  ethical  vir-, 
tues  for  it  shows  which  is  the  normal  state  for  every  one  in 
every  case  And  so  we  obtain  the  definition  of  ethical  virtue 
which  Aristotle  places  at  the  head  of  his  discussion  of  the 
virtues :  Virtue  is  a  state  of  deliberate  moral  purpose  con- 
sisting  in  a  mean  that  is  relative  to  ourselves,  the  mean 
being  determined  by   reason,  or   as   a  prudent  man   would 

determine  it.^  . 

It  is  evident  that  this  definition  does  not  yet  furmsh  us 
witli  an  objective  standard.     For  what  is  the  mean  or  normal, 
or  what  is  the  standpoint  from  which  reason  or  the  prudent 
man  determines  it?    Aristotle  did  not  answer  this  question, 
because,  so  it  seems,  he  did  not  believe  an  answer  could  be 
found      He   repeatedly  accentuates  the   difference  between 
this  field  of  knowledge  and  the  theoretical  sciences,  which 
treat  of  things  "  which  cannot  be  otherwise,"  while  the  prac- 
tical  sciences  deal  with  things  "  which  can  be  otherwise. 
In  the  sixth  book,  where  he  discusses  the  question  of  prudence 
i<\>p6vr^<Tt,^,  as  opposed  to  theoretical  knowledge  (cro<^/a),  he 
even  seems  to  incline  to  the  view  that  the  former  never  gives 
us  universal  judgments,  but  only  particular  decisions ;  which 
would  be  equivalent  to  denying  the  possibility  of  a  scientific 
ethics.     And  indeed  we  must  admit  that  Aristotlc^s  doctrine 
of  the  ethical  virtues  fails  to  meet  the  demands,   which  must 
be   made   upon   a   scientific  treatment   of    the   subject;    he 
makes   no   attempt  whatever   to   explain  the   difference    in 
value  between  virtuous  conduct  and  vicious  conduct,  as  was 
done  later,  say  by  Spinoza,  who  entertained  the  same  general 
view.     He  confines  himself  to  a  description  of  virtuous  modes 
of  conduct,  which  draws  mainly  upon  Greek  popular  usage, 
and  does  not  care  for  systematic  completeness.     Of  real  value 
is  the  acute  exposition  of  the  meaning  of  the  words  which 
the  Greek  people  used  to  express  moral  distinctions. 

1  1106  b.  36,  B.  II.,  chap.  6. 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


53 


\  In  this  way  Plato  and  Aristotle  meet  the  Socratic  demand 
for  a  science  of  the  good.  They  take  into  account  the  place 
of  man  in  the  cosmos,  and  then  attempt  to  define  his  idea, 
that  is,  his  natural  and  divine  purpose,  and  to  show  how  he 
may  realize  this  purpose.  The  conception  of  the  perfect  man 
which  they  advance,  essentially  resembles  the  popular  Greek 
ideal.  There  is  only  one  marked  difference :  in  the  scheme 
of  the  philosophers  the  purely  theoretical  exercise  of  the 
intellect  constitutes  the  chief  element  of  human  perfection ; 
the  philosophical  ideal  not  only  embodies  the  general  features 
of  the  Greek  character,  but  also  embraces  the  personal  feat- 
ures of  the  philosophers,  which  gives  the  concept  greater 
precision.    ) 

5.  The  post-Aristotelian  moral  philosophy  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  created  any  new  conceptions ;  on  the  whole  it 
follows  in  the  traces  of  its  great  predecessors.  But  it  is 
lacking  neither  in  great  and  fruitful  thoughts  nor  in  strong 
and  forcible  moral  preaching.  I  must  confine  my  efforts  to 
a  mere  outline  of  the  standpoints  of  the  two  chief  schools, 
which  for  a  long  time  formed  the  chief  subject  of  interest  in 
philosophy,  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans. 

The  Stoics,^  like  Plato  and  Aristotle,  regard  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  natural  purpose  as  the  highest  good  and  highest 
happiness  of  man.  They  formulate  this  idea  into  a  principle : 
life  according  to  nature  (^o/noXoyovfiivcof;  rfj  <f)va€L  ^rjv).  On 
the  basis  of  the  unusually  comprehensive  and  valuable  extracts 
from  the  ethical  writings  of  the  Stoics,  which  we  find  in  Dio- 
genes Laertius,2  we  may  outline  their  ethical  philosophy 
about  as  follows.  The  underlying  thought  is  the  proposition  : 
The  fundamental  impulse  of  every  living  being  aims  at  self- 
preservation  (Tr)v  7rp(OT7)v  op/jLr)u  to  ^wov  Xcr'^eiv  iirl  to  Trjpecp 
eavTo)y  to  which  is  added  the  polemical  statement :  and  not 

*  [See  Diogenes  Laertius,  Book  VII.;  Stobaeus,  Eclogues,  II.;  Cicero,  Dejinibus, 
Bibliography  in  Weber-Thilly,  p.  140,  p.  146.  —  Tr.] 
2  VII.,  84-131. 


J 


64  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHT 

at  pleasure.     The  law  of  its  nature  is,  therefore,  to  avoid  the 
harmful  and  to  strive  for  what  is  appropriate  to  it  (r^  ot/ceta). 
Pleasure,  however,  arises  as  an  accompaniment  when  a  bemg 
obtains  what  is  appropriate  to  it  {e-mr^iwv^a,  which  calls  to 
mind  Aristotle's  6Vt7^7^o/.6.o.  rkXo,).     Even   plants  act   in 
this  way,  although  they  are  unconscious  of  the  impulse,  which 
is  also  the  case  with  our  own  vegetative    functions.     Ani- 
mals, however,  are  conscious  of  the  impulse,  and  hence  it  is 
the  law  of  their   nature  to  follow  their  conscious  impulses 
(for   them   to    Kark   <f>6acv   is    equal    to   rh    Karh  r^v  W 
ZiOL^elaOaC),     But  man  is  endowed  with   reason   (o  X070O, 
besides  impulse  ;  hence  to  live  according  to  nature  means  for 
him  to  live  according  to  reason  (Kara  Xoyov'),  for  reason  is  by 
nature  the  regulator  of  desire  (X6709  rex^lrv^  iirLylveraLrv, 
opar,,:)      It  would  be  contrary  to  nature  for  man  to  follow 
irrational   desire.  -  But  in   so   far   as  the   nature   of   each 
individual  being  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  All,  to  live 
according  to  reason  means  for  man :   to  obey  the  umversal 
law  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  Jupiter,  the  highest  regula- 
tor  and  ruler  —  And  this  is  eudcemonia  and  welfare  iebpoia 
Tov  ^lov),  namely  to  do   everything   in  harmony  with  our 
demon,  according  to  the  will  of  the  universal  governor  and 
manager  of  all  things.     And  the  natural  disposition  of  every 
being  is  its   virtue   or  perfection  (reXelayai,)  ;   and   this  we 
oucrht  to  seek  for  its  own  sake,  without  being  influenced  by 
the  fear  or  hope  of  any  external  effects :  for  it  is  in  it  that 
happiness  consists.-  If  now  we  call  a  man  who  lives  accord- 
ing to  reason  a  wise  man,  we  may  say :  The  wise  man,  and 
the  wise  man  alone,  is  virtuous  and  happy. 

These  thoughts  may  all  be  regarded  as  applications  and,  in 
part,  more  definite  expressions  of  Aristotelian  principles. 
Reference  is  often  made  to  the  rigorism  of  the  Stoic  ethics, 
which  holds  that  virtue  alone  is  a  good,  but  this  is,  m  the 
last  analysis,  exactly  what  Plato  and  Aristotle  teach  :  that 
happiness  does  not  consist  in  pleasure,  but  in  the  exercise  of 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


55 


virtue.  Nor  is  there  any  radical  difference  in  their  concep- 
tions of  the  value  of  the  so-called  external  goods,  wealth, 
health,  beauty,  fame,  etc.  The  Stoics  will  not  concede  that 
these  things  are  real  goods  :  in  themselves  they  are  neither 
useful  nor  harmful,  good  or  bad,  but  either  one  or  the  other, 
according  to  the  use  to  which  they  are  put,  while  that  only 
is  good  which  can  never  be  harmful,  but  only  useful.  Yet 
they  confess  that  they  are  not  absolutely  indifferent,  that  wealth 
is  preferable  to  poverty,  health  to  sickness  {irpor^y^ieva  — 
a'iro'7rpo7)y/ieva}.  These,  too,  are  at  bottom  merely  systemat- 
ized, technical  statements  of  Aristotelian  ideas.  Aristotle 
had  used  an  admirable  figure  in  defining  the  value  of  external 
goods:  they  are  for  life  what  the  x^PVJ^^  is  for  the  tragedy, 
hence  they  certainly  belong  to  the  perfect  happiness  of  life, 
just  as  the  x^PVJ^^  is  necessary  to  the  perfect  production 
of   the   tragedy,  without,  however,  forming  a  real   part   of 

happiness. 

It  seems,  however,  that  the  desire  gradually  grew  stronger 
in  the  Stoics  to  make  happiness  (evBatfiovia)  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  external  goods.  The  freedom  from  passions 
QjrdOrf)  which  are  aroused  in  the  soul  by  the  acquisition  and 
loss,  the  possession  and  want,  of  external  goods,  the  doctrine 
that  virtue  suffices  for  happiness,  old  and  legitimate  concep- 
tions of  Greek  ethics,  are  emphasized  more  and  more  as 
moral  philosophy  becomes  moral  preaching.  The  practical 
moralist's  most  thankful  and  fruitful  task  is  to  throw  man 
upon  his  own  inner  resources,  and  this  task  the  Stoic  philos- 
ophy accomplished  with  laudable  skill :  nowhere  shall  we  find 
more  forcible  exhortations  to  make  ourselves  independent  of 
the  things  which  are  not  in  our  power,  and  to  depend 
upon  ourselves  with  inner  freedom,  than  in  Epictetus's  little 

Manual} 

With  this  tendency  to  moral  preaching  is  connected  an- 
other element  in  the  Stoic  philosophy :  the  value  of  theoreti- 

1  See  Long's  translation. 


56 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


cal  activity  is  lessened,  while  the  exercise  of  the  ethical 
virtues,  the  field  of  action,  especially  action  dealing  with 
human  relations,  the  family  and  the  state,  gradually  becomes 
more  prominent.  But  the  demand  that  we  keep  ourselves 
free  remains  the  chief  and  the  highest  demand. 

6.  Epicurus,^  too,  and  his  disciples  are  in  search  of  the 
highest  good  and  find  it  in  eudaemonia;  but  their  defini- 
tion of  it  differs  from  that  of  the  philosophers  mentioned 
above,  nay,  even  from  the  popular  Greek  conception:  for 
them  eudaemonia  is  a  feeling  of  pleasure.  This  view  leads 
to  a  change  in  the  position  of  virtue  or  excellence :  virtue 
becomes  a  means  to  the  end  of  pleasure.^ 

The  difference  between  the  two  standpoints  is  perfectly 
apparent.  The  Stoics  agree  with  Aristotle  and  Plato  in  defin- 
ing happiness  as  an  objective  condition  of  the  soul:  a  life 
that  realizes  the  natural  purpose  of  man,  or  perfectly  realizes 
his  idea,  is  itself  the  highest  good.  To  be  sure,  the  subjective 
satisfaction  follows  the  objective  constitution,  as  the  shadow 
follows  the  body,  but  the  satisfaction  is  not  itself  the  good. 
The  Epicureans,  on  the  other  hand,  regard  the  feelings  of 
pleasure  which  life  procures  as  the  good  itself,  and  the  con- 
stitution or  character  of  which  they  are  the  effect,  as  the 

means. 

When  we  disregard  this  question  of  principle  and  examine 
the  counsels  which  Epicurus  gives  to  his  pupils  concerning 
their  mode  of  life  (for  example  in  his  letter  to  Menoikeus)  ^ 
the  difference  largely  disappears,  yes,  we  might  almost  be 
tempted  to  view  it  as  a  purely  scholastic  or  technical  differ- 
ence. Epicurus  by  no  means  advises  us  to  choose  every 
pleasure,  nay,  he   expressly  warns  us   against  it.     "When, 

1  [Diogenes  Laertius,  X. ;  Cicero,  De  Jinihus ;  Lucretius,  De  rerum  natura 
(translated  hy  Munro).     Bibliography  in  Weber-Thilly,  p.   194,  note  1.] 

2  Kcistlin  shows  us  in  his  excellent  exposition  of  the  Democritean  ethics, 
Geschichte  der  Efhik,  I.,  196,  how,  even  in  his  ethics,  Epicurus  was  forestalled 
by  the  forceful  thinker  whom  he  followed  in  his  physics,  Demorritus. 

»  Diogenes  Laertius,  translation  by  Yonge  in  Bohn's  library,  X.,  122-125. 


THE  GREEK  CONCEPTION 


57 


therefore,  we  say  that  pleasure  is  a  chief  good,  we  are  not 
speaking  of  the  pleasures  of  the  debauched  man,  or  those  who 
lie  in  sensual  enjoyment,  as  some  think  who  are  ignorant,  and 
who  do  not  entertain  our  opinions,  or  else  interpret  them  per- 
versely ;  but  we  mean  the  freedom  of  the  body  from  pain,  and 
of  the  soul  from  confusion."  By  happiness,  he  says,  he 
means  the  health  of  the  body  and  the  freedom  from  disquiet- 
ude of  the  soul  {rr^v  Tov  (TcofiaTo<i  vymav  koX  ttjv  t%  irvxV'^ 
arapa^iav  Te\o<;  ehac  tov  fiaKapico^  p)i/).  Hence  the  essence 
of  wisdom  is,  in  his  opinion,  to  avoid  the  causes  of  confusion. 
Such  are  the  loss  and  want  of  things  which  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  possessing  and  enjoying,  as  well  as  the  fear  of 
losses.  "  To  accustom  oneself,  therefore,  to  simple  and  inex- 
pensive habits  is  a  great  ingredient  in  the  perfecting  of 
health,  and  makes  a  man  free  from  hesitation  with  respect  to 
the  necessary  uses  of  life.  And  when  we,  on  certain  occa- 
sions, fall  in  with  more  sumptuous  fare,  it  makes  us  in  a 
better  disposition  towards  it,  and  renders  us  fearless  with 
respect  to  fortune.  Hence  we  regard  contentment  {avrapKeio) 
as  a  great  good.  Above  all,  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  vain 
desires:'  Epicurus  distinguishes  between  natural  or  neces- 
sary and  vain  or  empty  desires  (^iTriOvfjilai  (^vcrtKai — icevaC), 
The  former,  he  finds,  are  easily  satisfied,  —  nature  does  not 
make  great  demands,  —  while  the  latter,  the  desires  of  luxury 
and  vanity,  are  infinite  and  never  to  be  satisfied.  Philoso- 
phy frees  us  from  this  trouble  by  teaching  us  what  we  should 
avoid  and  what  we  should  strive  after. 

Another  source  of  trouble  is  the  fear  of  deaths  and  of  what 
comes  after  death.  From  this,  too,  philosophy  frees  us  by 
showing  that  death  is  nothing  terrible,  since,  when  we  exist, 
death  is  not  present  to  us,  and  when  death  is  present,  then 
we  have  no  existence.  And  there  is  nothing  terrible  in  living 
to  a  man  who  rightly  comprehends  that  there  is  nothing  ter- 
rible in  ceasing  to  live.  An  enthusiastic  disciple  of  Epicurus, 
Lucretius,  emphasizes  this  phase ;  every  book  of  his  work  on 


m 


1 


68  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  THILOSOPHY 

the  Nature  of  Things^  sings  new  praises  to  the  man  who 
freed  mankind  from  the  imaginary  terrors  with  which  super- 
stition had  peopled  heaven  and  earth. 

"  Ilcnce  it  is  not  continued  drinkings  and  revels,  or  the 
enjoyment  of  female  society,  or  feasts  of  fish  and  other  such 
things   as  a  costly  table  supplies,  that  make  life  pleasant, 
but  sober  contemplation  which  examines  into  the  reasons  for 
all  choice  and  avoidance,  and  which  puts  to  flight  the  vain 
opinions  from  which  the  greater  part  of  the  confusion  arises 
which  troubles  the  soul.     Now  the  beginning  and  the  greatest 
good  of  all  these  things  is  prudence  {<\>p6v'n(TL^),  on  which  ac- 
count prudence  is  something  more  valuable  than  even  phil- 
osophy, inasmuch  as  all  the   other  virtues   spring  from  it, 
teaching  us  that  it  is  not  possible  to  live  pleasantly  unless 
one  also  lives  prudently,  and  honorably,  and  justly  ;  and  that 
one  cannot  live  prudently,  and  honestly,  and  justly  without 
living  pleasantly,   for  the   virtues  are   connate   with   living 
agreeably,  and    living    agreeably  is    inseparable  from    the 
vFrtues."     And  so  Epicurus,  too,  reaches  the  popular  Greek 
conception  that  virtue  and  happiness  are  inseparable,  as  the 
line  in  the  poem  expresses  it : 

*Qff  ayaBoi  re  /cm  evbaificov  afia  ylverai  dvf}p. 

7.  Summarizing  the  main  features  of  Greek  ethics,  we  may 
say  :  It  agrees  with  the  popular  Greek  view  that  the  highest 
good  consists  in  the  perfection  of  man  as  a  natural  heing. 
Special  stress  is  laid  upon  the  development  of  the  intellectual 
side.  Even  the  popular  conception  recognizes  the  great  im- 
portance of  the  intellect  for  human  perfection,  a  fact  to  which 
the  above  mentioned  work  of  L.  Schmidt  on  the  popular 
morality  of  the  Greeks  repeatedly  calls  attention.^  The 
philosophers,  the  specific  types  of  the  Greek  people,  as  the 
prophets  are  of  the  Israelites,  go  still  further,  and  make 
reason  the  root  and  crown  of  all  human  excellence.  For  them 
wisdom  or  philosophy  is  both  the  means  and  the  content  of 


THE   GREEK  CONCEPTION 


69 


1  De  rerum  natura. 


2  I.,  156,  230ff. 


eudcemonia  —  the  former,  in  so  far  as  it  acquaints  us  with 
the  highest  good  and  regulates  practical  life  to  the  end  of 
realizing  it,  the  latter,  in  so  far  as  philosophy,  or  the  scien- 
tific contemplation  of  the  universe,  is  the  highest,  freest  func- 
tion of  human  nature,  one  that  is  desired  solely  for  its  own 
sake.  It  is  said  that  Anaxagoras,  being  once  asked  for  what 
end  he  had  been  born,  answered :  "  For  the  contemplation 
of  the  sun,  and  moon,  and  heaven,  and  the  order  governing 
the  entire  universe."  This  is  really  the  answer  which  the 
entire  Greek  philosophy,  and  the  Greek  mind  in  general, 
gives  to  the  question. 

At  first  sight,  the  conception  strikes  us  as  a  rather  strange 
one.     We  are  not  in  the  habit  of  attaching  so  much  impor- 
tance  to  the  intellectual   function  ;  we  neither  expect   that 
prudence  or  insight  will  always  result  in  right  action,  nor 
are  we  ready  to  believe  that  the  true  mission  of  man  consists 
in  the  contemplation  of  things,  or  in  philosophy.     Perhaps 
we  shall  understand  both  points  better  when  we  remember 
how  different  was  the  position  occupied  by  scientific  knowl- 
edge among  the  Greeks  from  that  which  it  holds  in  modern 
life.    In  our  world  not  only  the  so-called  learned  professions, 
but  even  scientific  research  itself,  which  has  been  organized 
by   the    state   in   universities   and   academies,   have   become 
branches  of  industry.     As  is  the  case  with  the  manufacture 
of  shoes  and  watches,  a  man  may,  at  present,  make  his  liv- 
ing, and  a  good  living  at  that,  under  favorable  conditions,  by 
turning   out   mathematical    and    philological,   scientific   and 
philosophical  investigations.     This  was  not  the  case  in  Greece, 
at  least  not  when  philosophy  first  arose.     The  philosophers 
emphatically  declare   that  scientific  contemplation  and  pro- 
fessionalism  are  absolutely  incompatible :    the    Sophist  who 
attempts  to  combine  them,  thereby  loses  philosophy ;  he  is,  as 
Plato  shows  with  bitter  sarcasm  in  his  Sophist,  a  dealer  in 
sham  wisdom.     Heraclitus  and  Parmenidcs,  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, did  not  engage  in  the  contemplation  of  reality  for  the 


60 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE   GREEK  CONCEPTION 


61 


, « 


n 


sake  of  acquiring  money  or  professorships,  but  solely  for  its 
own  sake  :  we  work,  says  Aristotle,  in  order  to  have  leisure, 
but  the  most  beautiful  way  of  filling  our  leisure  is  philosophy. 

This  difference  in  the  outward  position  of  scientific  research 

is  intimately  connected  with  its  altered  inner  constitution; 
modern  scientific  research,  is,  as  compared  with  Greek  phil- 
osophy, more  like  labor,  often  like  petty  and  arduous  labor. 
The  physical  or  historical  investigator  of  our  time  employs 
an  enormous  apparatus  of  learning  and  technical  skill,  col- 
lections and  instruments,  in  order  to  throw  light  upon  some 
obscure  nook  of  reality  which  is  of  little  interest  in  itself,  and 
does  not  even  interest  the  investigator  very  much.  The 
result  of  his  work  may  at  some  time,  in  some  connection  or 
other,  assist  us  somewhat  in  miderstanding  reality  ;  often  we 
cannot  see  the  connection,  and  it  is  absolutely  immaterial  to 
many  an  investigator  whether  his  work  will  contribute  any- 
thing to  our  knowledge  of  the  whole  or  not. 

The  Greek  philosophers,  on  the  other  hand,  were  happy  in 
the  belief  that  it  was  possible,  and  that  each  one  of  them 
would  be  able  to  unravel  the  ultimate  mysteries  of  the  uni- 
verse  by  pure   contemplation.       Even  Aristotle,  the   great 
observer,  declares  that  of  all  activities,  scientific  investigation 
is  in  least  need  of  external  aids;  so  convinced  is  he  that  the 
apparatus  of  research  is  a  purely  secondary  affair.     It  is  plain 
that  a  theoretical  function  which  aims  to  solve  all  the  great 
problems  of  the  universe  and  of  life  with  its  world-encompass- 
ing thoughts,  has  greater  significance  for  the  personal  life 
of  a  man  than  the  investigation  of  Plautinic  metres  and  the 
discovery  of  new  methyls  and  phenyls.     When  the  occupation 
with  such  things  becomes  a  sport  and  is  pursued  as  a  sport, 
it  may,  like   all   sports,   chess-playing   or   stamp-collecting, 
become  a   matter   of  immediate  interest;    but  a  man   will 
hardly  be  inclined  to  regard  such  work,  even  though  he  fol- 
lows it  permanently,  as  the  real  object  of  his  existence.     If, 
however,  we  could  hope  to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  tlie  world 


and  of  life  by  studying  philosophy,  who  would  not  be  inter- 
ested in  it,  who  would  regard  it  as  too  trivial?  "Let  no 
one,"  so  Epicurus  begins  the  letter  quoted  above,  "  delay  to 
study  philosophy  while  he  is  young,  and  when  he  is  old  let 
him  not  become  weary  of  the  study ;  for  no  man  can  ever 
find  the  time  unsuitable  or  too  late  to  study  the  health  of  his 
soul.  And  he  who  asserts  either  that  it  is  not  yet  time  to 
philosophize,  or  that  the  hour  is  passed,  is  like  a  man  who 
should  say  that  the  time  is  not  yet  come  to  be  happy,  or  that 
it  is  too  late." 

The  belief  in  the  irresistible  power  of  knowledge,  which  is 
expressed  in  the  Socratic  statement  that  knowledge  deter- 
mines conduct,  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  one  should  do 
what  he  himself  regards  as  wrong  (a  statement  which  reap- 
pears in  some  form  or  other  in  all  the  philosophers),  has 
manifestly  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  position  which  philos- 
ophy occupied  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  Greeks.  We  are 
perfectly  aware  that  a  man  may  know  what  to  do  and  still 
not  do  it.  From  our  earliest  childhood  we  have  been  told  and 
have  known  that  we  ought  not  to  requite  evil  with  evil  but  with 
good,  even  in  the  case  of  our  enemies  —  but  who  acts  accord- 
ingly ?  But,  Socrates  would  have  asked  us,  what  do  you 
mean  by  "  knowing  "  ?  Surely  not  the  ability  to  repeat  a  lot 
of  words  after  a  person  ?  For  me  only  a  living  conviction  is 
knowledge.  —  "  Knowledge,"  as  we  often  understand  it,  was 
something  wholly  foreign  to  the  Greeks :  they  had  no  school 
instruction  in  which  the  memory  was  crammed  with  the 
"  knowledge"  of  others,  particularly  no  instruction  in  morals 
and  religion.  But  whenever  moral  maxims  and  judgments 
were  inculcated  in  their  youth,  as,  for  example,  by  the  study 
of  Homer,  they  embodied  ethical  conceptions  which  were 
thoroughly  intelligible  to  the  natural  man.  They  did  not 
discriminate,  as  we  do,  between  a  moral  creed  conned  by  rote 
and  a  morality  of  the  heart. — When,  however,  his  reflec- 
tions carried  a  philosopher  beyond  the  popular  conceptions 


62 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


to  new  views;  when  Socrates,  for  example,  found  that  it 
was  not  as  disgraceful  to  suffer  injustice  as  to  do  injustice, 
these  were  not  mere  empty  words  for  school  children  to 
learn  by  heart,  but  represented  the  personal  convictions  of 
the  thinker,  which  could  not  fail  to  influence  him  in  his 
actions. 

And  when  Epictetus  tells  his  pupils  that  the  wise  man  is 
independent  of  fate,  because  everything  that  really  concerns 
him  is  in  his  power,  while  wliatever  is  not  in  his  power  does 
not  concern  him,  his  words  are  not  merely  intended  to  be 
memorized  and  recited  at  confirmations  or  at  final  college 
examinations,  but  they  stand  for  real  experiences,  and  are 
therefore  capable  of  arousing  strong  convictions.  Hence  1 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  there  was  for  the  Greeks,  and 
particularly  for  the  Greek  philosophers,  more  truth  in  the 
proposition.  No  one  is  voluntarily  bad,  than  it  seems  to  us  to 
contain.  Mere  school  and  word  knowledge,  of  course,  is 
powerless,  but  real  knowledge,  knowledge  that  represents  real 
personal  convictions,  cannot  fail  to  influence  life. 

Scientific  research,  therefore,  or  philosophy,  occupied  a 
position  in  the  personal  life  of  the  Greek  philosophers  which 
it  does  not  necessarily  hold  at  present,  the  position,  namely, 
of  an  end-in-itself .  But  another  factor  helped  to  make  spec- 
ulative life  valuable.  For  the  Greek,  practical  life  was  syn- 
onymous with  political  life.  He  entertained  a  low  opinion  of 
industrial  activity,  it  was  regarded  as  vulgar ;  even  the  pro- 
fession of  the  artist  did  not  escape  his  contempt.^     No  one 


1  This  is  clearly  shown  in  a  little  treatise  of  Lucian's,  The  Dream,  a  work,  by 
the  way,  which  is  very  characteristic  of  the  Greek  mode  of  thought.  Science 
and  Art  appear  in  a  dream  before  the  boy  Lucian ;  each  tries  to  persuade 
him  to  devote  himself  to  her.  In  response  to  the  speech  of  Plastic  Art,  who 
holds  that  she  has  a  claim  upon  him,  because  his  ancestors  were  followers  of 
hers.  Science  answers :  "  You  have  heard  from  this  person  here  what  advan- 
tages you  could  hope  to  obtain  if  you  were  to  become  a  stone-mason.  You  would 
eventually  be  nothing  more  than  an  obscure  manual  laborer,  who  depends 
solely  upon  his  hands  for  his  success,  receiving  not  much  more  pay  than  a 
day-laborer,  base  and  narrow  in  your  mode  of  thought,  having  no  influence  in  tho 


THE   GREEK   CONCEPTION 


63 


ever  dreamed  of  doing  deeds  of  charity,  to  which  Christian 
orders  devote  themselves.  Statesmanship,  political  and  mili- 
tary leadership,  was  the  only  profession  left.  Now,  public 
life  in  the  smaller  Grecian  city-states  had  reached  such 
a  stage,  since  the  fifth  century,  that  it  is  not  hard  to 
understand  why  an  honest  man  should  have  lost  all  desire 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  The  popular  assemblies  and 
law-courts  were  the  battle-grounds  on  which  the  party-leaders 
and  orators  waged  bitter  war  against  each  other ;  they  strug- 
gled to  get  hold  of  "  the  latch  of  legislation,"  the  decree  of 
the  people,  in  order  that  they  might  kill  their  opponents,  or 
banish  them  and  confiscate  their  property.  The  execution 
of  Socrates  luridly  shows  the  horrible  state  of  insecurity 
prevailing  in  the  Greek  cities  ;  it  is  as  though  a  band  of 
half-grown  boys  had  obtained  possession  of  the  sword  of 
the  magistracy  and  were  now  playing  havoc  with  it.  In- 
deed, this  is  exactly  the  impression  of  Greek  political  life 
which  we  get  from  the  history  of  Thucydides ;  the  cities  and 
the  parties  in  every  city  spent  their  time  in  aimless  and  repul- 
sive bickerings,  they  exhibited  such  baseness  and  malice,  such 
cruelty  and  vindictiveness  towards  the  vanquished,  as  would 
fill  us  with  aversion,  were  it  not  for  our  deep  sympathy  with  a 
nation  otherwise  so  gloriously  endowed.  We  can  easily 
understand  why  men  who  scrupled  against  employing  the 
means  with  which  battles  were  waged  and  victories  won  in 
the  popular  assemblage,  decided  to  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  politics;  most  of  the  later  philosophers  followed 
the  example  of  Plato,  "  who,  in  the  storm  of  dust  and  sleet 

state,  equally  incapable  of  making  yourself  useful  to  your  friends  and  dangerous 
to  your  enemies. —  And  suppose  you  should  become  a  Phidias  or  a  Polyclet,  and 
had  created  a  great  number  of  admirable  works,  every  one  who  saw  them  would, 
it  is  true,  extol  your  art,  but  surely  no  one  among  all  your  admirers  would,  so 
long  as  he  was  in  his  right  mind,  desire  to  be  wliat  you  are.  For,  however  great 
you  iiii^lit  become  in  your  line,  you  would  always  be  regarded  as  a  miserable 
handicraftsman,  who  is  compelled  to  make  his  living  by  the  work  of  his 
hands."  These  remarks  express  Lucian's  own  view,  which  was  evidently  the 
fiew  of  all  cultured  Greeks. 


64  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

which  the  driving  wind  hurries  along,  retiring  under  the 
shelter  of  a  wall,"  withdrew  from  public  life.  Reflections 
upon  the  theme  that  the  philosopher  cannot  be  a  politician 
(toi/  aofov  fjL^  7ro\vT€V€(T0aO  are  common  among  the  later 
philosophers.  Hence  there  was  but  one  thing  left  to  them  — 
philosophy. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFEi 


1.  The  conversion  of  the  ancient  world  to  Christianitv  was 
the  greatest  revolution  which  European  humanity  experienced. 
It  meant  the  complete  overthrow  of  all  their  theories  of  life, 
the  "  transformation  of  all  values "  (Die  Umwertung  alter 
Werte)^  to  use  Nietzsche's  expression.  In  order  to  draw  the 
lines  as  sharply  as  possible,  I  shall  attempt,  first  of  all,  to  con- 
trast the  Christian  doctrine  of  self-denial  in  its  harsh  grandeur 
with  the  Greek  doctrine  of  self-preservation.  The  world 
always  tends  to  compromises  and  conciliations ;  they  are  not 
wanting  in  ancient  Christianity,  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  they 
are  very  common,  still  more  so  in  the  development  of  the 
Christianity  of  modern  times,  as  will  be  seen  later  on.  Here 
I  should  like  to  accentuate  the  fundamental  difference  between 
the  Greek  and  the  Christian  conception  —  sharply  and  one- 
sidedly  if  you  please  —  as  Christianity  itself  conceived  it  at  its 
entrance  into  the  ancient  world.  The  Greek  affirmation  of  the 
world  (  Welthejahung')  and  the  Christian  negation  of  the  world 
(Weltiiberwindung^,  these  are  the  two  paths  open  to  man.^ 

^  [See,  besides  the  works  of  Sidgwick,  Wundt,  Jodl,  Janet,  Eucken,  mentioned 
on  p.  35 :  Gass,  Geschichte  der  christlichen  Ethih ;  Bestmann,  Geschichte  der 
christlichen  Sitte;  Ziegler,  Geschichte  der  christlichen  Ethik  ;  Luthardt,  Geschichte 
der  christlichen  Ethik ;  Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals ;  Ueberweg,  History 
of  Philosophy,  vol.  II.,  §§  4  and  5 ;  Baur,  Das  Christenthum  der  drei  ersten  Jahr- 
hunderte  (Engl,  transl.  by  Allan  Menzies)  ;  Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte  ;  Fisher, 
The  Beginnings  of  Christianity.  Consult  also  the  standard  Lives  of  Christ  and 
church  histories.  For  further  bibliographical  references,  see  the  beginning  of  the 
second  volume  of  Ueberweg ;  also  Weber-Thilly,  p.  9,  note  2.  — Tr.] 

^  The  exposition  which  follows  has  been  criticised,  on  the  ground  that  it  rep- 
resents Christianity  as  a  weak,  meek,  world-weary,  down-trodden,  ascetic  affair. 
That  is  not  the  impression  which  I  intended  to  create.     Christianity  was  at  first 


66 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


The  Greeks  regarded  the  perfect  development  of  the  natural 
powers  of  man  as  the  great  aim  of  life.  Christianity,  on  the 
other  hand,  clearly  and  consciously  sets  up  the  opposite  as  the 
goal  of  life :  the  death  of  the  natural,  and  the  resurrection  of 
a  new,  supernatural  man.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again,"  so 
Christ  teaches  Nicodemus,  "he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God  "  ;  the  repentance  QierdvoLo)  which  Christ  demands,  with 
John  the  Baptist,^  is  in  truth  a  regeneration.  The  old  and 
the  new  man  are  opposed  to  each  other  as  the  flesh  (jrdp^^ 
and  the  spirit  {irvevfia)!^  Paul  logically  defines  this  antithe- 
sis :  there  is  a  twofold  life,  the  life  after  the  flesh  and  the  life 
after  the  spirit ;  the  former  the  life  of  the  natural  man,  the 
latter,  the  effect  of  grace  ;  the  former  intent  upon  perishable 
things  and  leading  to  death,  the  latter  turned  toward  eternity 
and  leading  to  eternal  life :  "  for  he  that  soweth  to  his  flesh 
Bhall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption ;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
spirit  shall  of  the  spirit  reap  life  everlasting."  ^  The  new  life 
is  the  death  of  the  old ;  through  the  spirit  the  deeds  of  the 
hody  are  mortified.* 

This  character  of  the  new  religion  is  expressed  in  its  sacred 
acts.  We  enter  into  Christianity  through  baptism;  it  is 
called  by  Paul  a  likeness  (o/Aotw/Lta)  ^  of  the  death  of  Jesus  ; 

certainly  not  a  negative,  but  a  very  positive  thing ;  it  was  not  characterized  by 
feelings  of  depression  and  dejection,  but  by  a  feeling  of  cheerful  certainty,  the 
certainty  of  possessing  a  treasure  beyond  all  other  treasures.    And  from  this 
conviction  sprang  the  proud  feeling  of  freedom,  with  which  the  Christian  opposed 
the  "  world  "  and  its  regulations,  society  and  its  conventional  values,  the  law  and 
its  pedantic  formalism.  —  But  my  main  purpose  here  was  to  contrast  it  sharply 
with  the  Greek  conception  of  life  and  morality,  and  hence   I  first  considered 
Christianity  from  its  negative  side,  the  side  which  distinguishes  it  as  something 
entirely  new  in  the  world.    Besides,  Christianity  now  and  then  becomes  conscious 
of  its  original  negative  relation  to  the  "  world"  and  the  kingdom  which  is  of  this 
world,  and  so,  in  my  opinion,  regains  some  of  its  pristine  essence  and  strength. 
A  Christianity  entirely  reconciled  and  at  peace  with  the  world  is  a  weak  and 
powerless  affair,  and  surely  not  the  real  and  original  Christianity.     True  Chris- 
tianity may  always  be  recognized  by  the  fact  that  it  seems  strange  and  danger- 
ous to  the  world. 

1  Math.,  iv.,  17. 

2  John,  iii.,  6.  *  Rom.,  riii.,  13. 
»  Gal.,  vi.,  8.                                            '  Bom.,  vi.,  5. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CONCEPTION 


67 


a  very  intelligible  symbol,  so  long  as  Christianity  was  at  war 
with  the  world ;  it  was  a  serious  reminder  of  the  bloody  bap- 
tism which  might  follow  the  water  baptism.  The  other  sacra- 
ment is  no  less  suggestive  of  death ;  by  eating  the  body  and 
drinking  the  blood  of  Jesus,  the  believers  celebrate  the  mem- 
ory of  his  sacrificial  death,  themselves  forming  a  community 
consecrated  to  a  bloody  sacrifice.  It  is  likewise  worthy  of 
note  that  the  new  churches  usually  also  served  as  burial- 
places,  that  the  bones  of  the  martyrs  were  interred  in  the 
altar  itself.  The  natural  man  dreads  contact  with  death ;  it  is 
a  pollution,  according  to  the  Greek  as  well  as  the  Jewish  con- 
ception, even  in  the  religious  sense,  while  to  the  Christian, 
death  is  a  familiar  thought;  it  is  the  entrance  into  life. 

2.  The  entire  Christian  life  is  permeated  with  this  concep- 
tion. What  the  old  or  the  natural  man  desires  or  values  is 
regarded  by  the  new  man  as  worthless  or  dangerous;  and 
conversely,  the  sufferings  and  privations  which  the  former 
seeks  to  escape,  the  latter  regards  as  salutary  and  beneficial. 
Let  me  point  out  the  main  differences  between  the  two  theories 
of  life. 

The  perfection  and  exercise  of  the  intellectual  capacities 
seemed  to  the  Greeks  a  highly  important,  to  their  philosophers 
an  absolutely  necessary,  function  of  human  life.    The  attitude 
of  primitive  Christianity  towards  reason  and  natural  knowl- 
edge is  one  of  contempt  and  distrust.    The  poor  in  spirit  are 
blessed  by  Jesus;  the  people  who  follow  him  are  poor  and 
uncultured;  what  is  hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent  is 
revealed  to  children.     Nay,  natural  reason  and  wisdom  are 
really  a  stumbling-block  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  preach- 
ing of  the  cross  is  foolishness  to  it.     "  Where  is  the  wise  ?  " 
Paul  asks  the  congregation  at  Corinth,^  '*  where  is  the  scribe  ? 
where  is  the  disputer  of  this  world?  hath  not  God  made 
foolish  the  wisdom  of  this  world?    For  after   that   in   the 
wisdom  of  God  the  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God,  it  pleased 

1  1  Cor,  l,  20. 


68  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

God  by  the   foolishness  of   preaching  to  save  them  that 

The  church  did  not  strictly  adhere  to  this  view ;  as  a  church 
she  could  not  adhere  to  it.     When  she  began  to  dominate  the 
entire  life  of  the  peoples,  she  was  compelled  to  press  into  her 
service  the  most  important  instrument  of  temporal  power, 
knowledge.     But    primitive   Christianity  stood  in   no    posi- 
tive relation  to  worldly,  scientific  knowledge.     «  The  form  of 
a  servant,  the  spiritual  form,  disappeared  in  the  third  century 
when  brilliant  teachers  of  the  church  and  even  rich  bishops 
appeared ;   but  in  its  poor  form  Christianity  overcame  the 
world  "  1    And  wc  may  note  the  after-effects  of  this  original 
relation  in  the  entire  history  of  the  Christian  church  life :  I 
am  thinking  not  merely  of  the  Christian's  distrust  of  scientific 
investigation  and  the  law  of  obedience,  which  the  intellect,  too, 
was  expected  to  observe  -  a  law,  it  is  true,  which  often  sprang 
from  very  worldly  motives  — but,  above  all,  of  that  simplicity 
of  heart  which  always  succeeded  in  minimizing,  among  all 
true  believers   in   Christ,  those   differences   of  culture   and 
knowledge,  which  hinder  the  free  interchange  of  thought  in 
the  personal  intercourse  of  the  worldly-minded.     And  deeply 
religious  natures  have  always  shown  an  aversion  to  puffed-up 
learning,  to  the  spirit  of  criticism  and  negation,  which  springs 
from    arrogance    and    begets   arrogance,  to  the  mama  for 
systems,  and  to  scientific  pride. 

'  Hence  the  virtues  of  the  intellect,  freedom  and  boldness  of 
thought  and  the  power  to  doubt,  the  vital  principle  of  scien- 
tific research,  are,  in  the  eyes  of  primitive  Christianity; 
worthless  and  dangerous.    Faith  and  obedience  are  becoming 

to  the  Christian. 

3.  Like  the  virtues  of  the  intellect,  so  are  also  the  ethical 
virtues  of  the  Greeks,  which  are  nothing  but  natural  impulses 
educated  and  disciplined  by  the  reason,  worthless  and  dan- 
gerous, according  to  the  conception  of  primitive  Christianity ; 

I  Hase,  Kirchengeschichte,  1,  258. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


69 


the  more  dangerous  because  they  seem  good :  they  are  splen- 
did vices.  "  Though  it  may  seem  laudable  that  the  soul  govern 
the  body,  and  reason  the  vicious  impulses,  yet  the  soul  and 
reason  itself,  cannot  by  any  means,  unless  it  serve  God,  as 
God  himself  has  prescribed  it,  govern  them  in  the  right  way. 
For  what  kind  of  a  lord  of  the  body  and  of  the  vices  can  a 
mind  be,  which,  being  ignorant  of  the  true  God  and  not  sub- 
ject to  his  governance,  is  prostituted  and  corrupted  by  the 
demons  polluted  with  all  the  vices  ?  And  the  virtues  them- 
selves, if  they  bear  no  relation  to  God,  are  in  truth  vices 
rather  than  virtues  ;  for  althougli  they  are  regarded  by  many 
as  truly  moral  when  they  are  desired  as  ends  in  themselves 
and  not  for  the  sake  of  something  else,  they  are,  ncA^crtheless, 
inflated  and  arrogant  (inflatce  ac  superhce)^  and  therefore 
not  to  be  viewed  as  virtues  but  as  vices."  This  is  St. 
Augustine's  opinion  of  all  purely  human  virtues.^ 

4.   In  the  opinion  of  the  natural  man,  courage  is  the  chief 

1  De  Civitate  Dei,  xix.,  25.  —  In  his  Confessions  he  moralizes  upon  his  own  past 
life  from  this  standpoint :  everything  natural  and  human  in  it  was  an  alienation 
from  God  and  therefore  reprehensible.    With  tiresome  monotony  he  passes  from 
cue  period  of  his  life  to  the  other,  and  shows  the  emptiness  and  baseness  of  all 
tliose  acts  of  his  which  sprang  from  his  natural  impulses.     That  the  nursling 
cried  for  the  breast,  that  the  boy  took  pleasure  in  his  sports  and  the  youth  in 
rhetorical  exercises,  that  he  was  ambitious  for  distinction  and  fame,  that  he  was 
devoted  to  friends  and  followed  liis  natural  sexual  impulses,  that  he  admired 
distinguished  teachers  and  dedicated  his  maiden  works  to  a  revered  man,  that  as  a 
teacher  he  gathered  young  men  about  him  and  joyfully  and  zealously  instructed 
them  in  knowledge  and  in  eloquence,  that  he  passionately  searched  for  the  truth 
and  believed  that  he  would  find  it  in  the  philosophers :  all  this  he  now  condemns 
from  his  newly  acquired  Christian-ecclesiastical  standpoint :  it  was  nothing  but 
vanity,  foolishness,  and  carnal  corruption.     One  point  alone,  which  the  purely 
human  judgment  would  perhaps  regard  as  the  blackest  spot  in  the  previous  life 
of  the  Saint,  he  passes  over  without  a  single  word  of  blame;   his  resolution, 
namely,  to  abandon  a  woman  who  had  been  his  mistress  for  years,  and  who  had 
borne  him  a  son,  and,  at  the  instigation  of  his  mother,  to  marry  a  woman  of  his 
own  rank.      This  resolution  —  which  his  mistress  prevented  him  from  carrying 
out  —  this  intended  act  of  faithlessness  to  a  woman  whom  he  loved,  but  could 
not  marry  for  social  reasons,  he  passes  over  without  a  complaint,  without  a  word 
of  self-reproach,  only  to  condemn  himself  violently  immediately  after  for  his  in- 
ability to  resist  his  longing  for  her  even  after  the  separation.     So  completely  do 
his  feelings  differ  from  the  natural  human  feelings. 


70  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOrHY 

virtue ;  it  is,  as  Greek  and  Roman  popular  usage  implies, 
the  virtue  or  excellence  as  such,  and  its  absence  is  equivalent 
to  absolute  unworthiness.   Courage  is  based  upon  the  impulse 
of  self-preservation ;  it  ensures  the  success  of  the  ego  and  its 
claims  in  the  struggle  with  those  opposing  it.    The  Christian, 
.vho  obeys  the  law  of  God,  -  resists  not  evil,"  he  does  not 
combat  it,  but  endures  it ;  patience  or  patient  waiting  {vTrofiovv) 
is  his  courage.     He  does  not  wield  the  sword.     The  sword  is 
the  instrument  by  which  to  obtain  one's  share  of  the  world  ; 
the  Christian   has  and   desires  no   part  in  the  world;   his 
heritage  is  in  the  future  world,  it  cannot  be  won  or  lost  by 
the  sword.     The  old  church  is  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
thought   that   a   Christian   cannot   wield   the   sword.     Even 
though  the  times   soon    accommodated    themselves   to  the 
necessities  of  life,  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  they  did  so 
without  some  misgivings.     Christian  soldiers  were,  beyond 
doubt,  regarded  as  an  anomaly  in  the  congregation,  during 
the  earlier  centuries.    Tertullian  expresses  the  conviction  of 
the  primitive   Christian,  though  in  a  more  emphatic  and 
categorical  manner,  when  he  says :  ''  It  is  impossible  to  swear 
fealty  to  God  and  to  man,  to  serve  under  the  banner  of  Christ 
and  under  the  standard  of  the  devil,  in  the  camp  of  light  and 
in  the  camp  of  darkness ;  one  soul  cannot  serve  two  masters, 
God  and  the  Emperor.     When  the  Lord  deprived  Peter  of  the 
sword,  he  disarmed  all."  ^     It  surely  seemed  an  absolute  con- 
tradiction for  a  clericus  to  wear  the  sword.     Among  all  the 
sects  which  renew  the  old  Christian  mode  of  life,  the  dread 
of  shedding  blood  at  once  reappears  in  its  original  strength. 
The  same  feeling  asserts  itself  against  capital  punishment. 

How  far  removed  the  modern  world  is  from  the  old  Christian 
conception  is  perhaps  nowhere  so  clearly  seen  as  here :  the 
fear  of  the  sword  and  of  bloodshed  has  wholly  disappeared 
—  disappeared  even  from  the  church.  The  great  military 
heroes  are  the  national  saints  of  the  modern  nations,  the 

1  De  idohhitria,  chapter  19. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CONCEPTION 


71 


anniversaries  of  victorious  battles  are  celebrated  as  public 
holidays,  the  streets  and  squares  of  our  cities  are  named  after 
bloody  battle-fields.  In  the  schools  our  children  learn  the 
history  of  wars,  which  comprises  the  chief  part  of  the  history 
of  mankind ;  the  victories  of  our  nation  over  our  neighbors  are 
regarded  as  its  most  important  and  grandest  achievements. 
In  the  churches  prayers  are  offered  every  Sunday  for  the 
royal  arms  on  water  and  on  land.  The  modern  Christian 
has  no  fault  to  find  with  all  this  —  a  sure  sign  that  he  differs 
from  the  primitive  Christian,  who  proved  his  courage  solely 
by  his  patient  suffering  and  heroic  martyrdom.  ^ 

5.  Related  to  the  virtue  of  courage  is  the  virtue  of  justice, 
by  which  we  mean  that  strong  sense  of  justice  which  every- 
where insists  upon  the  right,  the  right  of  others  as  well  as  of 
self.  Not  to  do  wrong  is  one  side  of  justice ;  its  comple- 
ment is  not  to  permit  wrong  to  be  done,  cither  to  self  or  to 
others.  This  is  what  the  Greeks  and  Romans  understood  by 
the  duty  of  justice,  and  so  Jhering  has  recently  interpreted 
it  in  his  book.  The  Battle  for  the  Right?  The  law-suit,  or 
the  legal  battle  for  the  right,  is  the  civil  form  of  self-preser- 
vation and  self-assertion,  of  which  the  sword  is  the  military 

form. 

Primitive  Christianity  does  not  recognize  justice  in  this 
sense  as  a  virtue ;  it  is  acquainted  with  only  one  side  of  it, 
with  the  duty  not  to  do  wrong,  not  with  the  duty  not  to  per- 
mit wrong.  It  does  not  say  :  If  a  man  injures  you  and  tram- 
ples upon  your  rights,  you  ought  or  are  allowed  to  resist  him 
by  lawful  means  ;  but  the  law  of  Moses :  An  eye  for  an  eye,  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,  is  expressly  abrogated  and  replaced  by  a 
new  law :  "  But  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  resist  not  evil 
(to)  TTovrjpui),  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right 
cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  will  sue 
thee  at  law,  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak 

1  [See  Herbert  Spencer,  Inductions  of  Ethics,  §§  115,  118,  192.  —  Tr.] 

2  Der  Kampfums  Recht. 


72 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


also,  and  whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile,  go  with 
him  twain."  ^    And  a  few  verses  further  back  we  read  :  2 
« Agree  with  thine  adversary   (tc5  avTiBlKO))  quickly,  while 
thou  art  in  the  way  with  him."     Hence  not  only  anger  and 
hatred  and  private  revenge,  but  law-suits  are  explicitly  pro- 
hibited.    This  is  also  St.  Paul's  notion  of  it :  he  strictly  for- 
bids  the   Corinthians  to   go  to  law  before  heathen  judges, 
before  the   unjust,  who   arc   not   esteemed   in  the   church: 
"  Is  it  so  that  there  is  not  a  wise  man  among  you  ?  no,  not 
one  that  shall  be  able  to  judge  between  his  brethren  ?  "     And 
then  he  proceeds:  "Now  therefore  there  is  utterly  a  fault 
among  you,  because  ye  go  to  law  with  one  another.     Why  do 
ye  not  rather  take  wrong  ?     Why  do  ye  not  rather  suffer 
yourselves  to  be  defrauded  ?  "  ^     Even  though  this  law  was  not 
always  observed  among  the  old  Christians,  it  was  undoubtedly 
recognized  as  binding ;  they  felt  the  same  dread  of  the  law- 
suit as  a  means  of  defending  their   individual  rights  as  of 

the  sword.* 

In  this  respect,  too,  the  difference  between  modern  and 
primitive  Christianity  is  apparent  enough.  We  regard  it  as 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  go  to  law  for  our 
rights,  or  to  turn  over  to  the  judge  for  punishment  a  man 
who  has  damaged  our  body  and  life,  our  honor  and  property. 
I  am  not  saying  that  this  is  right  or  wrong ;  all  I  mean  to 
imply  is  that  in  doing  these  things  we  are  undoubtedly  acting 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  primitive  Christianity. 

6.  This  determined  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  towards 

1  Matt.,  v.,  38-41.  *  Verse  25.  «  1  Cor   vi.,  7. 

*  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  a  passage  in  the  Gospel  (A/a«.,  xviu.. 
1.5-17)  inclines  to  a  more  positive  treatment  of  this  side  of  life  :  "  Moreover,  if 
thy  brotlier  shall  trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him  his  fault  between  thee 
and  him  alone :  if  he  sliall  hear  thee,  thou  hast  gained  thy  brother.  But  if  he 
will  not  hear  thee,  then  take  with  thee  .one  or  two  more,  that  in  the  mouth  of 
two  or  three  witnesses  every  word  may  be  established.  And  if  he  shall  neglect 
to  hear  them,  tell  it  unto  the  church ;  but  if  he  ne-lcct  to  hear  the  church,  let 
him  be  unto  thee  as  a  heatlien  man  and  a  publican."  However,  not  a  smgle 
word  is  said  of  the  law-suit  and  the  law. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


73 


the  state.     The  Greek  and  Roman  regarded  participation  in 
the  affairs  of  state  as  the  highest  and  most  important  duty  of 
man.     The  primitive  Christian,  who  did  not  value  the  fund- 
amental political  virtues,  courage   and  the  sense  of  justice, 
looked  upon  the  state  as  something  alien  to  himself  and  the 
inner  principle  of  his  life  :  in  the  state  men  wrangle  over  the 
things  of  this  world,  employing  the  means  of  this  world  ;  war 
and  courts  of  justice  are  its  two  fundamental  functions.     The 
primitive  Christian's  attitude  to  this  entire  institution  was  one 
of  forbearance.     He  formed  a  part  of  it,  as  he  formed  a  part 
of  the  world  in  general,  as  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim  ;  he  had 
even  less  interest  in  it  than  the  member  of  another  state.  — 
As  a  passive   citizen,  however,  his  conduct  was  exemplary : 
he  was  obedient  in  all  things  which  were  not  contrary  to  his 
divine  mission ;  he  willingly  paid  taxes  ;  he  obeyed  all  laws 
which  prohibited  wrong-doing,  not  only   on  account   of  the 
punishment,  but  for  conscience'  sake,  and  in  so  far  as  the 
magistracy  realized  justice,  it  was  recognized  as  the  order  and 
instrument  of  God.    When,  however,  he  was  asked  to  act  in  vio- 
lation of  his  conscience,  then,  of  course,  he  could  not  obey  5  he 
would  not  sacrifice  to  the  gods  or  to  the  Emperor,  nor  swear 
in  their  name  ;  he  thereby  declared  that  there  was  something 
higher  for  him  than  the  state,  namely  the  kingdom  of  God,  of 
which  he  considered  himself  a  citizen,  and  he  would  allow  no 
command  of  earthly  rulers  to  turn  him  aside  from  the  duties 
which  this   citizenship  imposed  upon  him.      But  here,   too, 
he  rendered  obedience  in  so  far  as  he  accepted  the  punishment 
which  was  inflicted  upon  him,  without  opposition  and  complaint. 

Hence  the  Christians  were  both  submissive  to  authority  and 

yet  inwardly  free  in  their  attitude  to  the  state,  something  which 
the  ancient  citizen  neither  could  be  nor  cared  to  be.  —  Can  a 
Christian  be  an  officer  of  the  state  ?  In  the  earlier  times  there 
was  little  occasion  for  discussing  the  question  :  it  was  not  the 
powerful  and  the  noble  after  the  flesh  who  first  came  to  the 
community  of  Christ,  but  the  ignoble  and  the  despised  in  the 


74 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


eyes  of  the  world.  It  would  undoubtedly  have  been  regarded 
as  a  strange  contradiction  to  serve  both  the  crucified  one  and 
the  lord  of  this  world.  In  Tertullian  the  spirit  of  primitive 
Christianity  strongly  protests  against  the  gradual  seculariza- 
tion of  the  church.  "  By  despising  the  power  and  the  glory 
of  this  world,"  he  declares,^  "the  Lord  rejected  it  and 
condemned  it,  and  reckoned  it  among  the  things  which  are 
the  pride  of  the  devil.  If  they  were  his,  he  would  not  have 
condemned  them ;  but  that  which  is  not  of  God  can  belong  to 
no  one  but  the  devil.  And  this,  too,  may  remind  you  that  all 
the  powers  and  dignitaries  of  this  world  are  not  only  foreign 
to  God,  but  hostile  to  him,  the  fact  namely,  that  they  condemn 
the  servants  of  God  to  death,  but  forget  the  punishments 
which  are  intended  for  criminals."  Even  as  late  as  the  year 
305  the  synod  of  Elvira  decreed :  Whoever  holds  the  office 
of  duumvir  must  stand  aloof  from  the  church  during  his  term 
of  office.2  Not  until  the  conversion  of  Constantino,  when 
Christianity  became  a  state  religion,  did  a  complete  change 
take  place  :  now  the  officers  of  the  state  became  the  repre- 
sentatives and  the  defenders  of  "  Christianity,"  and  the  clergy 
in  a  sense  became  state  officers.  And  at  present  many  are 
perhaps  inclined  to  believe,  reversing  the  words  of  Paul ,8  that 
the  preservation  of  Christianity  is  the  especial  business  of  the 
wise  and  powerful,  the  cultured  and  high-born,  and  that  it 
would  die  out  if  the  princes  and  lords  of  this  world  and  their 
servants  did  not  take  care  of  it. 

7.  The  fourth  cardinal  virtue,  after  wisdom,  courage,  and 
justice,  is,  according  to  the  Greek  conception,  <7(o(t)poavp7]^  or 
temperance.  It  is  the  state  of  the  healthy-minded  man,  who 
understands  the  art  of  moderate  and  beautiful  enjoyment,  and 
can  also  do  without  things  when  necessary.  Greek  education 
endeavored  to  cultivate  this  virtue  :  by  means  of  the  gym- 

1  De  idol.,  chap.  18. 

2  Uhlhorn,  Die  christliche  Liehesthdtiqheit  in  der  alien  Kirche,  p.  356.  See  also 
Gass,  Geschichte  der  christlichen  Ethik  (1881),  i.,  92  ff. 

8  1  Cor.,  i.  26. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


75 


nastic  and  musical  arts,  the  two  phases  of  education,  it  strove 
to  inculcate  in  the  body  and  the  soul  of  the  young  the  power  of 
self-control  and  the  faculty  of  enjoying  themselves  beautifully. 
The  gymnastic  and  musical  contests  formed  the  climax  of 
national  pleasure ;  to  participate  in  them,  as  a  competitor  for 
the  wreath  and  as  a  spectator,  was  culture  (Traihevaisi). 

The  attitude  of  primitive  Christianity  towards  enjoyment 
was  an  entirely  different  one,  and  hence  could  not  recognize 
this  virtue,  or  only  recognize  its  negative  side,  as  in  the  case 
of  justice :  the  ability  to  resist  the  allurements  of  pleasure. 
The  Christian  fled  from  earthly-sensuous  pleasure  in  every 
form;  even  though  it  might  not  be  sinful  in  itself,  it  was 
too  apt  to  endanger  the  soul,  by  fettering  it  to  that  which 
is  earthly  and  perishable,  and  impeding  the  free  flight  of  the 
spirit  to  eternity.     With  fearful  earnestness  Jesus  commands 
us  to  pluck  out  and  cast  from  us  every  member  that  offends 
us  :  for  it  is  better  to  enter  into  glory  lame  and  disfigured 
and  without  eyes,  "  than  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast 
into  hell."     "  Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are 
in  the  world.    If  any  man  love  the  world  the  love  of  the  Father 
is  not  in  him.     For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the 
flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is  not  of 
the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world."     So  the  Apostle  John  ad- 
monishes the  Christians  in  his   first  letter,   debarring   not 
merely  coarse  sensuous  pleasure,  but  also  aesthetical  pleasure 
(the  lust  of  the  eyes)   and  everything  that  makes  this   life 
glorious   and  grand  (aXa^oveCa  tov  filov)  in  the  eyes  of  the 
children  of  this  world.     So,  too,  the  first  letter  of  Peter  i 
beseeches  the  brethren :  as  strangers  and  pilgrims  to  abstain 
from  fleshly  lusts,  which  war  against  the  soul.    And  Paul  does 
not  weary  of  admonishing  those  who  are  of  Christ  to  crucify 
the  flesh.     Nowhere,  however,  are  we  exhorted  to  make  the 
body  and  the  soul  capable  of  enjoying  the  beautiful  pleasures 
of  life,  or  to  train  the  physical  and  spiritual  powers  for  par- 


1  i\ 


ii.,  11. 


76 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


ticipation  in  gymnastic  exercises  and  games,  or  in  the  cheerful 
play  of  poetry  and  art.  The  education  of  a  Christian  has  an 
entirely  different  object  in  view  from  tlie  education  of  the 
Greek :  it  must  open  our  eyes  to  the  vanity  and  transitoriness 
of  this  life,  and  to  its  awful  seriousness,  inasmuch  as  the 
eternal  life  depends  upon  how  we  live  here.  Musical  and 
gymnastic  arts,  however,  are  not  suited  to  prepare  us  for 
eternal  life ;  they  are  sown  in  the  flesh  and  are  raised  in  cor- 
ruption. How  can  a  Christian  who  aspires  to  the  imperish- 
able crown  strive  after  the  virtues  by  which  wreaths  arc 
won  at  heathen  games  ?  Who  can  lind  pleasure  in  the  fables 
of  the  poets,  when  he  can  hear  the  words  of  the  Lord  and 
the  apostles  ?  How  can  he  strive  for  "  culture "  who  is 
struo-crlino-  for  "holiness"?  All  this  is  so  self-evident  that 
it  does  not  even  have  to  be  mentioned :  in  a  true  Christian 
even  the  desire  for  such  things  is  inconceivable. 

Among  the  Christians  it  is  not  culture  and  eloquence  that 

are  prized,  but  silence.    Silence  is  the  first  duty  recommended 

by  Ambrosius  in  his  work  on  the  duties  of  the  clergy  : ^  "It  is 

written :  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  condemned.     Hence  why 

wilt  thou  rush  into  the  danger  of  perdition  by  speaking,  when 

thou  mayst  be  safe  by  keeping  silence  ?  I  have  seen  many  fall 

into  sin  by  speaking,  but  hardly  a  single  one  by  keeping 

silence.     Hence  he  is  wise  who  can  be  silent."    And  soon  after 

he  says :  ^  "  There  may  be  decent  and  amiable  jests,  but  they 

are  not  compatible  with  the  rules  of  the  church  ;  how  can 

we  make  use  of  that  which  does  not  appear  in  the  Scriptures. 

We  must  also  avoid  the  fables  of  the  poets,  lest  they  weaken 

the  firmness  of  our  resolutions.     Woe  unto  you  that  laugh 

now,  for  ye  shall  mourn  and  weep :  so  says  the  Lord ;  and 

shall  we  seek  for  matter  to  laugh  at  here  that  we  may  weep 

hereafter  ?     I  believe  we  must  not  only  avoid  wanton  jests, 

but  all  jests;   one  thing  alone  is  proper:   a  mouth  full  of 

sweetness  and  grace." 

1  De  off.  ministrorum,  I.,  2.  *  Li  23. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


77 


8.  This  also  determines  the  attitude  of  Christianity  to 
earthly  goods.  Since  wealth  is,  first  of  all,  a  means  to  sen- 
suous good  living,  and  secondly,  to  beautiful  enjoyment  and 
culture,  he  who  does  not  value  these  things,  cannot  approve 
of  the  means  which  make  them  possible.  Riches  have  no 
value  for  the  Christian ;  he  has  enough  when  he  possesses 
what  suffices  to  satisfy  his  daily  needs.  But  riches  are  not 
only  worthless,  they  are  dangerous.  There  is,  of  course, 
nothing  sinful  in  possession  as  such,  in  itself  it  is  abso- 
lutely indifferent;  but  wealth  is  a  serious  menace  to  the 
owner,  in  so  far  as  it  constantly  tempts  him  to  use  it,  and  thus 
enslaves  the  soul.  Nothing  recurs  so  frequently  in  the  Gospels 
as  the  warning  against  the  dangers  of  riches.  It  seems 
almost  impossible  to  Jesus  that  a  rich  man  should  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  God ;  it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle.  Wealth  makes  us  eager  for  this  world 
and  careless  of  the  hereafter,  as  the  rich  man  learned  when 
he  reaped  a  good  harvest  and  soon  began  to  meditate  what 
to  do  and  where  to  bestow  his  fruits  ;  wealth  sates  us  and 
makes  us  indifferent  to  the  wants  of  our  neighbors,  as 
Dives  learned  before  whose  door  poor  Lazarus  lay  ;  wealth 
alienates  God  from  us,  for  he  allows  no  other  God  beside 
himself:  ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon.  Therefore, 
Jesus  commanded  his  disciples  that  they  should  take  noth- 
ing for  their  journey :  no  scrip,  no  bread,  no  money  in  their 
purse,  when  he  sent  them  out  to  preach ;  and  it  surely  was 
not  an  accident  that  Judas,  who  carried  the  purse,  most  likely 
because  he  was  the  ablest  financier  of  the  twelve,  should  have 
turned  traitor.  Hence  the  urgent  entreaty  to  the  good  young 
man  to  give  up  his  riches :  "  Go  thy  way,  sell  whatever  thou 
hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven." 

Interpreters  of  the  Gospel  are  in  the  habit  of  protesting 
against  the  misconception  that  Christ  actually  commanded 
the  young  man  to  give  up  his  riches.     Clement  of  Alexandria 


78 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


early  pointed  out,  in  his  discussion  of  the  question,  What  Rich 
Man  will  be  Saved?  that  the  command  to  sell  everything 
and  give  to  the  poor,  did  not  mean,  as  some  hastily  assume, 
that  he  should  abandon  his  possessions,  but  merely  his  false 
opinions  with  respect  to  them,  his  love  and  greed  for  them. 
This  ingenious  discovery  has  been  made  over  and  over  again. 
According  to  the  same  art  of  interpretation,  we  might  reason : 
When  a  mother  tells  her  child  who  has  taken  hold  of  a  sharp 
knife,  to  lay  the  knife  aside,  this  does  not  mean  that  he  should 
put  it  down,  but  only  that  he  should  not  cut  himself  with  it ; 
that  he  may  keep  the  knife.  —  Would  the  young  man  have 
gone  away  grieved  if  Jesus  himself  had  thus  interpreted  his 
saying  for  him  ?  I  believe  he  would  at  once  have  replied : 
"This  have  I  observed  from  my  youth." 

Here,  again,  I  am  not  deciding  whether  the  command  of 
Jesus  ought  to  be  obeyed,  or  whether  it  could  possibly  be 
obeyed  universally  ;  1  am  simply  defending  its  true  and  un- 
mistakable meaning  against  all  sorts  of  interpretations  which 
attempt  to  bring  the  Gospel  into  harmony  with  the  world. 
We  hear  it  said  that  the  fulfilment  of  this  law  would  destroy 
our  entire  civilized  life.  It  is  very  probable  that  it  would. 
But  what  does  that  prove?  Where  is  it  written  that  it 
should  be  preserved  ?  Tertullian  answers  the  objection  of 
those  who  refused  to  obey  the  law  against  the  pursuit 
of  handicrafts  or  trades  relating  to  heathen  worship,  on  the 
ground  that  they  must  live,  by  asking  the  question:  Must 
you  live  ?  What  companionship  have  you  with  God,  if  you 
desire  to  live  according  to  your  own  laws  ?  You  will  suffer 
want?  But  the  Lord  calls  those  that  suffer  blessed.  You 
cannot  support  yourselves  ?  But  the  Lord  says :  Take  no 
thought  for  your  life ;  consider  the  lilies  of  the  field. 

9.  Let  us  now  compare  the  Greek  with  the  Christian  view 
of  honor.  According  to  the  Greek  conception,  the  love  of 
honor  is  a  virtue :  the  just  man  desires  to  be  the  first  in  his 
sphere  (irpayTeveiv),  and  to  be  esteemed  as  such.     Noble  pride, 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CONCEPTION 


79 


high-mindedness  (fieyaXoyfrv^Ca),  is  the  intensification  of  the 
proper  love  of  honor.  The  high-minded  man  regards  himself 
as  worthy  of  high  things,  and  is  worthy  of  them :  so  Aristotle 
defines  him,  completing  the  picture  with  many  delicate 
touches.^ 

The  virtue  of  the  Christian  is  humility.  Once,  when  a 
quarrel  arose  among  the  disciples  about  the  highest  places  in 
the  new  kingdom,  Jesus  rebuked  them ;  "  Ye  know  that  those 
which  are  accounted  to  rule  over  the  Gentiles  exercise  lord- 
ship over  them  :  and  their  great  ones  exercise  authority  upon 
them.  But  so  shall  it  not  be  among  you :  but  whosoever  will 
be  great  among  you,  shall  be  your  minister :  and  whosoever  of 
you  will  be  the  chiefest,  shall  be  servant  of  all."  *  That  is  the 
order  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  direct  opposite  of  the 
order  in  the  earthly  kingdoms.  —  And  it  is  perfectly  self-evi- 
dent that  the  Christian  neither  seeks  for  nor  obtains  the  glo- 
ries of  this  world.  Before  the  world  he  is  nothing ;  disgrace 
and  ridicule  are  his  glory,  as  Jesus  declares  to  his  disciples. 
And  he  calls  them  blessed  for  it :  "  Blessed  are  ye  when  men 
shall  revile  you,  and  persecute  you,  and  shall  say  all  manner  of 
evil  against  you  falsely  for  my  sake.  Rejoice  and  be  exceeding 
glad :  for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven :  for  so  persecuted 
they  the  prophets  which  were  before  you."  *  And  the  Gospel  of 
St.  Luke,  which  is  still  more  emphatic  in  its  opposition  to  the 
world,  adds ;  "  Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  shall  speak  well 
of  you,  for  so  did  their  fathers  to  the  false  prophets."  * 

This  humility  does  not  exclude,  but  rather  has  as  its  ob- 
verse, a  harsh  pride^  the  pride  which  scorns  and  despises  the 
world  and  everything  that  is  in  it  and  is  esteemed  by  it. 
Humble  before  God  and  the  weak  and  lowly,  but  proud 
towards  those  who  think  well  of  themselves  and  bask  in  the 
light  of  their  glory :  that  too  is  a  fundamental  characteristic  of 
the  Christian.     Both  John  the  Baptist  and  Christ  exhibit  this 


1  Nic.  Ethics,  IV.,  7  ff. 
«  Mark',  X.,  35  ff. 


8  Matt.,  v.,  11,  12. 
*  vi.,  26. 


80  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

honest,  fearless,  nay,  defiant  pride  towards  the  great  and  the 
respectable,  the  Sadducees  and  Pharisees,  the  high-priest  and 
the  Roman  governor.  And  we  also  occasionally  find  this 
pride  in  later  disciples  of  Jesus,  who  have  turned  their  backs 
upon  the  world  and  now  frankly  tell  it  that  they  neither 
desire  nor  esteem  its  glory  and  its  honor,  its  virtue  and  its 
grandeur ;  for  which  the  world,  as  is  to  be  expected,  pays 
them  back  in  hatred  and  disgrace. 

So  long  as  Christianity  retained  its  original  relation  to  the 
world,  to\e  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  was  the  mark 
of  a  Christian;  whenever  the  church  made  her  peace  with 
the  world,  and  sects  began  to  separate  from  her,  in  order  to 
live  after  the  primitive  Christian  fashion,  men  again  began  to 
regard  it  as  a  necessary  test  of  true  Christianity  to  suffer 
disgrace  in  the  name  of  Christ.  A.  H.  Francke  tells  us  in  his 
autobiography  that  when  he  was  a  diligent  and  respectable 
studiosus  theologice,  intending  to  become  a  very  elegant  and 
learned  man,  "  the  world  was  well  pleased  with  him.  I 
loved  the  world,  and  the  world  loved  me.  I  was  entirely  free 
from  persecution  then."  After  his  conversion,  however, 
he  tells  us,  things  changed ;  then,  for  the  first  time,  he  dis- 
covered what  the  world  was,  and  in  what  it  differed  from  the 
children  of  God,  for  soon  it  began  to  despise  and  to  hate 

him. 

It  is,  therefore,  true  that  all  Greek  virtues  are,  in  the  light 
of  Christianity,  splendid  vices;  they  are  all  rooted  in  the 
natural  man's  impulse  of  self-preservation,  in  the  impulse  of 
knowledge,  in  the  impulse  of  revenge,  in  the  desire  for  culture, 
in  the  love  of  honor ;  they  represent  the  perfection  of  his 
nature  in  perfect  civilization.  It  is  true  that  nothing  less 
than  the  death  of  the  old  and  the  birth  of  a  new  man  is  neces- 
sary to  transform  a  Greek  into  a  Christian.  Nothing  that 
was  prized  among  the  Greeks  was  prized  by  the  Christians, 
and  conversely,  nothing  that  was  prized  by  the  latter  wa? 
prized  by  the  former.     It  is  true  that  the  virtues  of  the  Greek 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


81 


are  an  impediment  to  regeneration :  the  publicans  and  sinners, 
those  who  have  failed  with  their  natural  strength  and  virtue, 
and  now  look  back  upon  a  wrecked  life,  are  far  more  apt  to 
suffer  a  great  and  radical  change  of  heart  than  the  just. 
Through  sin  and  suffering  leads  the  path  to  conversion. 

10.  For  the  natural  virtues  of  the  Greeks,  Christianity 
substitutes  a  single  new  one :  piti/  or  mercy.  To  love  your 
neighbors,  to  take  pity  upon  their  misery,  to  feed  the  hungry,  to 
give  drink  to  the  thirsty,  to  visit  the  outcast,  nay,  not  even  to 
resist  the  evil,  to  forgive  and  to  do  good  unto  those  that  hate 
you  and  persecute  you,  —  that  is  the  ideal  which  Jesus  places 
before  his  disciples,  and  lives  out  himself.  By  this  pity  we 
are  not  to  understand  weak-hearted  dolefulness,  nor  by  the 
love  of  enemy,  tender-hearted  compliance.  The  obverse  of 
these  virtues  is  a  passionate  anger  against  those  who  cause 
such  misery,  or  at  least  harden  their  hearts  against  it,  against 
the  unjust  and  selfish  lords  who  devour  the  substance  of  the 
widows  and  orphans,  against  those  well-fed  and  self-righteous 
respectable  persons,  who  see  the  wretchedness  of  the  people 
and  complaisantly  say :  It  is  their  own  fault ;  why  are  they 
not  virtuous  like  us,  for  then  they  would  prosper  as  we  do. 
Compassionate  love  is  the  great  virtue  which  Jesus  preaches, 
and  self-righteous  hardness  of  heart  the  great  vice  upon  which 
he  pronounces  harsh  judgments.  For  all  he  has  a  word  of 
pity  and  love,  the  lost  sons  and  daughters  of  his  people  he 
takes  to  his  heart,  the  woman  who  has  sinned  much  he  raises 
up,  the  thief  on  the  cross  who  confesses  his  sins  he  promises 
to  meet  in  paradise :  only  for  the  virtuous  and  self-righteous 
Pharisee  who  is  not  as  other  men  are,  extortioners,  unjust, 
adulterers,  or  even  as  this  publican, he  has  harsh  words;  only 
for  the  servant  who  cannot  forgive  his  fellow-servant  he  has 
no  forgiveness. 

Now,  the  Greeks  are  as  unfamiliar  with  the  vice  of  self- 
righteousness  as  with  the  virtue  of  pity. 

As  the  normal  condition  of  the  feeling  of  self-esteem  the 


82  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Greek  regards  the  consciousness  of  individual  power  and  ex- 
cellence ;  it  is   the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the^  thing 
itself.     His  morality  warns  him  against  arrogance  (vfipc<;^y 
which  makes  a  man  despised  before  gods  and  men,  but  it  warns 
him  no  less  against  the  opposite,  lowliness  of  mind  {Taireipo^ 
(i>povelv).    The  Greek  is  proud  of  his  virtues,  he  has  acquired 
them  himself,  they  are  the  fruits  of  hard  labor.     "  In  one  re- 
spect," says  Seneca,!  u  the  wise  man  excels  God ;  the  latter 
owes  it  to  his  nature  that  he  fears  nothing,  the  wise  man  owes 
it  to  himself."      "I  die  without  remorse,"  said  the   dying 
Julian,  "  as  I  have  lived  without  sin."  —  On  the  other  hand, 
lowliness  of  mind  {TaTT€ivo(f>povelv)  is  the  beginning  of  Chris- 
tianity.    Conversion  begins  with  remorse  and  penitence,  and 
the  feeling  of  powerlessness  and  sinfulness  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental moods  of  the  Christian ;  he  prays  every  day  with  the 
publican  :  God  have  mercy  upon  me  a  sinner.     A  remarkable 
statement  by  the   Princess  A.  von   Galitzin  expresses  this 
mood  in  a  somewhat  morbid  form,  and  at  the  same  time  be- 
trays the  curious  logic  peculiar  to  Christian  humility :  "  An 
important  element  of  Hamann's  spirit  and  teachings  has  clung 
to  me,  the  conviction,  namely,  that  the  desire  for  a  good  con- 
science would  be  a  very  dangerous  leaven  in  me,  and  that  one 
of  the  chief  features  of  faith  must  be  that  I  suffer  the  thought 
of  my  nothingness  and  completely  trust  in  God's  mercy.     I 
plainly  saw  that  the  feeling  of  complacency  aroused  by  my  dis- 
satisfaction with  my  own  imperfection  and  weakness,  would  be 
the  most  concealed  and  dangerous  hiding-place  of  my  pride."  ^ 
Just  as  self-righteousness  is  not  one  of  the  vices  of  the 
Greek,  pity  is  not  one  of  his  virtues.     In  the  list  in  which 
Aristotle   enumerates  ^  the  qualities  esteemed  as  virtues  by 
the  Greeks,  mercy  finds  no  place.     In  its  stead  we  discover  a 
kind  of  heathen  counterpart  to  it :  liberality  {ekeveepiorr^^^^j 

1  Epist.,  53. 

2  Correspondence  and  Diary  of  the  Princess  Galitzin,  new  series,  1876,  p.  359. 

*  Book  IV.,  Nicomachean  Ethics. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CONCEPTION 


83 


and  the  intensified  form  of  the  latter,  magnificence  (/LteyaXo- 
irpiireia).    He  is  liberal,  according  to  Aristotle's  version,  who 
gives  from  a  noble  motive  and  in  a  right  spirit,  who  gives  the 
right  amount,  and  to  the  right  persons  at  the  right  time,  and 
satisfies  all  the  other  conditions  of  right  giving ;  ^  he  is  mag- 
nificent who   spends  large  sums  of  money  with  good  taste, 
for  example,  upon  votive  offerings  to  the  Gods,  or  "  upon  the 
favorite  objects  of  patriotic  rivalry,  as  when  people  consider 
it  their  duty  to  supply  a  chorus  or  fit  out  a  trireme  or  even  to 
give  a  public  dinner  in  handsome  style."  ^     But  here  the  im- 
portant person  is  not  the  recipient  of  the  gift,  but  the  giver, 
the  object  is  not  to  alleviate  suffering,  but  to  glorify  the  name 
of  the  benefactor.     Not  a  single  word,  throughout  Aristotle's 
long  discussion,  is  said  of  the  neediness   of  the  recipient; 
compassion  plays  no  part  as  a  motive.     The  climax  of  mag- 
nificence and  munificence  was   reached  in  Rome;  from  the 
booty  stolen  from  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  the  Roman 
lords  gave  to  the  populace  of  the  metropolis  money  and  bread, 
theatres  and  baths.     It  is  obvious  that  this  virtue  has  noth- 
ing in  common  with  Christian  pity.     The  fundamental  char- 
acteristic of  Christian  charity  is  self-denial,  while  liberality 
is  a  form  of  self-enjoyment.     Pity  contemplates  the  want  of 
others,  and  makes  sacrifices  to  help  them,  liberality  has  for 
its  object  the  glorification  of  the  giver.     Pity  is  practised  in 
secret;  publicity  is  peculiar  to  liberality.    Pity  is  bestowed 
upon  the  stranger,  who  is  nothing  to  you  in  the  order  of 
nature ;  liberality,  on  the  other  hand,  upon  relatives,  clients, 
and  fellow-citizens. 

Christian  charity  does  not  spring  from  the  natural  impulse 
to  enjoy  one's  own  superiority  by  giving  help,  nor  is  it  rooted 
in  the  natural  impulses  of  sympathy  which  grow  out  of  gen- 
eric life  and  unite  man  with  his  neighbor.  The  story  of 
the  good  Samaritan  shows  this  phase.  It  is  the  answer 
to  the  question:     And  who  is  my  neighbor,  whom  I  shall 

1  Book  IV.,  chap.  2  ff .  ^  Chapters  4  and  5. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


85 


84 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


love  ?     The  natural  man  answers :  My  family,  my  children, 
my  parents,  my  wife,  my  relatives,  the  members  of  my  house- 
hold, my   neighbors,  fellow-countrymen,  and   co-religionists. 
That  must  have  been  the  opinion  of  the  scribe  also.     Jesus 
enlightens  him :  Not  these,  but  the  very  first  man  whom  you 
happen  to  meet,  and  who  is  in  want.     For  this  is  evidently 
the  meaning  of  the  somewhat  perverted  ending  of  our  account. 
The  commentary  to  it  may  be  found  in  the  verses  which 
substitute  the  commandment  of  brotherly  love  for  the  com- 
mandment of  Moses,  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew}  Moses  has 
commanded  you  to  love  your  neighbors  and  hate  your  enemies. 
But  what  would  there  be  so  remarkable  in  that  ?    Do  not  even 
the  publicans  the  same  ?    And  if  ye  salute  your  brethren  only, 
what  do  ye  more  than  others  ?    Do  not  even  the  heathen  the 
same  ?    Be  ye  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  is  perfect.     He  makes  no  distinctions  in  his  benefi- 
cence, hence  you  should  not  do  it  either,  unless  it  be,  perhaps, 
to  give  strangers  preference  over  your  friends :  "  When  thou 
makest  a  dinner  or  a  supper,  call  not  thy  friends,  nor  thy 
brethren,  neither  thy  kinsmen,  nor  thy  rich  neighbors ;  lest 
also  they  bid  thee  again,  and  a  recompense  be  made  thee. 
But  when  thou  makest  a  feast  call  the  poor,  the  maimed,  the 
lame,  the  blind,  and  thou  shalt  be  blessed."  «    The  highest, 
however,  is  to  do  good  even  to  your  enemies ;  to  suffer  evil 
for  the  sake  of  the  good,  and  not  to  bear  malice :  that  is  per- 
fection.     Savonarola   once   summed   up   Christianity  in   the 
sentence :  « My  son,  to  be  good  means  to  do  good  and  to 
suffer  evil,  and  not  to  weary  of  it  to  the  end." 

11.  We  may  now  consider  the  attitude  of  Christianity  to 
famil?/  life.  The  family  is  the  beginning  of  all  natural  charity 
or  love  of  neighbor.  Christianity,  which  never  aims  at  the 
development  of  natural  impulses,  cannot,  as  might  at  first  be 
supposed  from  the  estimate  it  places  on  love,  regard  the 
family  as  a  thing  of  absolute  worth.     For  it  the  community 


of  the  flesh  is  far  inferior  to  the  community  of  the  spirit. 
Jesus  left  his  family  and  gathered  around  him  a  new  family, 
one  not  united  by  the  ties  of  blood,  but  by  spiritual  ties ;  which 
caused  at  least  a  temporary  estrangement  from  his  blood- 
relatives.  He  demands  that  those  who  follow^  him  likewise 
sever  their  natural  ties,  wherever  occasion  may  demand  :  "  If 
any  man  come  to  me  and  hate  not  his  father,  and  mother,  and 
wife  and  children,  and  brethren,  and  sisters,  yea  and  his  own 
life  also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."  ^  He  knows  that  his 
preaching  will  break  natural  bonds:  "For  from  henceforth 
there  shall  be  five  in  one  house  divided,  three  against  two, 
and  two  against  three.  The  father  shall  be  divided  against 
the  son,  and  the  son  against  the  father ;  the  mother  against 
the  daughter  aild  the  daughter  against  the  mother;  the 
mother-in-law  against  her  daughter-in-law,  and  the  daughter- 
in-law  against  her  mother-in-law."  ^  Natural  ties  lose  their 
importance  for  those  who  no  longer  live  in  the  flesh. 

The  ability  to  sever  them  altogether  has  always  been 
regarded  by  the  followers  of  Christ  as  a  criterion  of  perfec- 
tion. The  saints  are  often  openly  praised  because  the  ties 
of  blood  have  no  power  over  them.  In  Hartpole  Lecky's 
History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to  Charlemagne? 
we  find  a  number  of  passages  from  the  literature  of  the 
saints,  which  show,  by  way  of  example,  the  meritoriousness 
of  absolute  indifference  to  blood-relationship.  Let  me  quote 
one  of  the  examples.  In  Cassian's  work,  De  coenohiorum 
institutis^^  we  read  the  following  story.  A  man  named 
Mutius,  accompanied  by  his  only  child,  a  little  boy  eight 
years  old,  abandoned  his  possessions  and  demanded  admis- 
sion into  a  monastery.  The  monks  received  him,  but  they 
proceeded  to  discipline  his  lieart.  "  He  had  already  forgotten 
that  he  was  rich  ;  he  must  next  be  taught  to  forget  that  he  was 
a  father."    His  little  child  was  separated  from  him,  clothed  in 

1  Luke,  xiv.,  26 ;  somewhat  weakened  in  Matt.,  x.,  34. 

a  Luke,  xii.,  52  fE.  »  Vol.  II.  *  IV.,  27. 


|l 


1  v.,  43. 


2  Luke,  xiv.,  12. 


86  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

dirty  ra-s,  subjected  to  every  form  of  gross  and  wanton  liard^ 
ship,  spurned,  and  ill  treated.  Day  after  day  the  father  was 
compelled  to  look  upon  his  boy  wasting  away  with  sorrow, 
his  once  happy  countenance  forever  stained  with  tears,  dis- 
torted by  sobs  of  anguish.  But  "  such  was  his  love  for  Christ, 
and  for  the  virtue  of  obedience,  that  the  father's  heart  was 
ri^nd  and  unmoved.  He  thought  little  of  the  tears  of  his 
cirild  He  was  anxious  only  for  his  own  humility  and  per- 
fection  in  virtue."  At  last  the  abbot  told  him  to  take  his 
child  and  throw  it  into  the  river.  He  proceeded  without  a 
murmur  or  apparent  pang,  to  obey,  and  it  was  only  at  the 
last  moment  that  the  monks  interposed,  and  on  the  very 
brink  of  the  river  saved  the  child. 

The   story  may   have   been   invented  in   imitation  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac ;  but  the  admiration  which  the  narrator 
expresses  is  not  an  invention.    This  conduct  is,  doubtless, 
not  in  accord  with  the  views  of  Jesus.     We  must  confess, 
however,  that  it  may  be  deduced  as  an  extreme  consequence 
from  certain  passages  in  the  Gospels.      To  the  question  of 
Peter:   "Behold   we  have  forsaken  all  and  followed   thee; 
what  shall  we  have  therefore?"   Jesus  answers  not  rebuk- 
ingly,  but  with  the  promise  that   they   shall  be  nearest  to 
him  in  his  glory  ;   "  and  every  one  that  has  forsaken  houses, 
or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or 
children,  or  lands,  for  my  name's  sake,  shall  receive  a  hun- 
dredfold, and  shall  inherit  everlasting  life."  ^ 

Such  a  mode  of  thought  is,  of  course,  not  conducive  to  the 
formation  of  family  ties.  Jesus  himself  remained  unmarried, 
and  suggests  that  others,  too,  may  dispense  with  marriage  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake.  ^ 

Although  the  Apostle  Paul  thinks  highly  enough  of  the 
institution  of  true  marriage  to  refer  to  it  in  illustration  of 
Christ's  relation  to  the  church,  he  nevertheless  shows  a  de- 
cided preference  for  unmarried  life.     The  church  at  Corinth 


i  Matt,  xix.,  27  £f. 


«  Matt,  xix,  12. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


87 


had  asked  him  some  questions  concerning  marriage.  In  his 
answer  ^  he  lays  special  emphasis  upon  the  following  sentence 
by  placing  it  at  the  beginning :  "  It  is  good  for  a  man  (^koXov) 
not  to  touch  a  woman."  Nevertheless,  to  avoid  fornication, 
let  every  man  have  his  own  wife  and  let  every  woman  have 
her  own  husband.  "  I  say  therefore  to  the  unmarried  and 
the  widows  :  It  is  good  for  them,  if  they  abide  even  as  I." 
"  He  that  is  unmarried  careth  for  the  things  that  belong  to 
the  Lord,  how  he  may  please  the  Lord ;  but  he  that  is  mar- 
ried careth  for  the  things  that  are  of  the  world,  how  he  may 
please  his  wife."  This,  of  course,  is  not  a  commandment; 
and  those  who  "  cannot  contain,  let  them  marry."  Similarly, 
in  the  Apocalypse  ^  virginity  is  regarded  as  a  merit,  which 
will  also  be  recognized  in  the  new  kingdom.  Therefore, 
marriage  is  permitted  on  account  of  the  weakness  of  the 
flesh,  but  it  is  nowhere  looked  upon  as  a  phase  of  life  essential 
to  the  perfection  of  human  nature.  And  this  thought  runs 
through  the  entire  Patristic  literature  :  virginity,  the  freedom 
from  the  bondage  of  sensuality,  constitutes  a  fundamental 
part  of  perfection. 

12.  The  starting-point  of  this  radical  change  is  the  certainty 
that  our  earthly  life  is  not  the  true  life.  The  ancient  Greeks 
knew  of  no  other  life  than  this,  everything  good  and  beautiful 
and  great  known  to  them  was  contained  in  it ;  the  life  of  the 
dead,  which  formed  the  subject  of  doubtful  fables,  had  for 
them  a  shadowy  existence.  And  this  earthly  life  is  good  and 
worth  living  for  him  who  knows  how  to  live  it  well :  it  offers 
everything  that  a  healthy  mind  can  desire. — The  ancient 
Christians  are  absolutely  convinced  that  this  temporal  life  is 
perishable  and  vain  and  worthless.  Upon  our  earth  the  real  life 
nnd  the  real  goods  are  not  to  be  found ;  only  the  world  to  come 
(o  alo»v  fiiWoyv)  will  bring  them  to  light.  To  this  future  world, 
which  the  apostolic  times  believed  was  about  to  be  established 
by  the  return  of  the  Lord,  belonged  the  Christians ;   in  the 


1  1  Cor.,  vii. 


2  xiv.,  4. 


88  OKIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

earthly  world  they  are  strangers  and  pilgrims.  A  traveller 
does  not  take  any  active  interest  in  the  affairs  of  a  foreign 
country,  but  bears  them  as  best  he  can.  So  the  Christians 
behave  with  respect  to  this  world.  They  are  in  the  world  in 
the  flesh  only,  and  their  spirit  is  not  at  home  in  it;  they  live 
in  the  world,  but  their  hearts  are  in  heaven ;  they  do  the 
work  which  living  in  the  world  imposes  upon  them,  but  they 
have  no  interest  in  it.  Pleasure  and  desire  are  the  bonds 
with  which  the  world  strives  to  fetter  their  hearts;  therefore 
the  Christians  constantly  crucify  the  flesh  with  its  lusts  and 
desires  ;  the  natural  man  loves  pleasure,  and  flies  from  pain 
as  from  something  evil ;  the  Christian,  on  the  other  hand, 
looks  upon  pain  as  wholesome  and  upon  pleasure  as  dangerous 
-  pleasure  is  the  bait  with  wliich  the  devil  ensnares  the  soul 
in  order  to  chain  it  to  the  world.  To  be  dead  to  the  pleasures 
and  the  pains  of  the  earth  is  the  mark  of  perfection. 

But  it  would  be  a  complete  misrepresentation  of  the  Chris- 
tian mood  to  conclude  that  its  chief  characteristics  are  dis- 
content and  gloom.    Nay,  the  fundamental  feeling  is  rather 
one  of  deep  tranquil  peace,  in  which  are   mingled  notes  of 
sorrow  for  the  vanity  and  nothingness  of  the  world,  notes 
of  "  divine  sadness,"  but  which  also  contains  cheerful  strains 
of  heavenly   joy   and  hope.      World-sorrow   and  pessimism 
vanish  as  soon  as  earthly  things  cease  to  excite  and  to  alarm 
the    heart  with  fear  and    hope,   pleasure    and    disappoint- 
ment.    Hence  Christianity  is  not  essentially  negative,  like 
pessimism,  but  positive  :  the  eternal  life  which  is  to  come  and 
is  close  at  hand  overshadows  the  temporal  life.    The  carnal 
man's  natural  impulse  of  self-preservation  gives  way  to  the 
supernatural  impulse  of  self-preservation  of  the  spiritual  man, 
in  accordance  with  the  words  of  Jesus :  "  Whosoever  shall  seek 
to  save  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life 
shall  preserve  it ; "  i  or  "  He  that  loveth  his  lite  shall  lose  it , 
and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life 

1  Luke,  xvii.,  33. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


89 


eternal."  ^  But  the  transmundane  eternal  life  influences  our 
earthly  life :  it  creates  a  new  will,  which  strives  after  holi- 
ness and  perfection,  as  the  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect ;  it 
creates  a  new  feeling  of  self-reliance :  the  feeling  that  we  are 
children  of  God  ;  it  creates  a  new  form  of  human  intercourse : 
the  community  united  in  brotherly  love  ;  lastly,  it  creates 
a  new  relation  to  the  earth  and  its  goods :  the  Christian  is 
the  master  of  all  things,  capable  of  enjoying  all  innocent 
pleasures,  and  yet  firmly  attached  to  none.  Paul  often  aptly 
describes  this  paradox  in  the  life  of  the  Christian  :  "  As  sor- 
rowful, yet  always  rejoicing ;  as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich; 
as  having  nothing,  and  yet  possessing  all  things."  ^ 

13.  Many  will  fail  to  recognize  in  the  above  exposition  of 
Christianity  and  its  conception  of  life,  the  picture  which  they 
may  have  formed  of  it.  Many  believe  that  Christianity  and 
Greek  humanity  are,  if  not  absolutely  identical,  at  least 
closely  akin  to  each  other.  It  is  not  unusual,  even  in  our  day, 
to  find  Jesus  described  as  an  amiable,  cheerful,  and  mild 
moral  teacher,  who  made  it  the  object  of  his  life  to  remove  all 
hatred  and  enmity  from  the  world,  and  to  establish  a  king- 
dom of  peace  and  love.  He  was  himself  capable  of  enjoying 
everything  beautiful  and  good,  and  therefore  did  not  begrudge 
his  disciples  any  pure  pleasure  which  life  offered.  Hase  so 
portrays  him  in  his  Life  of  Christ  :  Jesus  naively  enjoyed  the 
goods  of  this  world,  although  he  did  not  burden  himself  with 
their  possession,  on  account  of  his  liigher  mission.  Like  a 
bridegroom  he  lived  among  his  disciples  ;  he  did  not  even 
abstain  from  indulging  in  a  social  cup  of  wine :  in  short, "  never 
was  a  religious  hero  less  opposed  to  the  pleasures  of  life."  ^ 
That  he  did  not  take  a  wife  must  have  been  due  to  accidental 
causes :  "  let  us  assume,  say,  that  his  affianced  died.  Or, 
this,  too,  may  be  conjectured :  that  he  from  whose  religion 
the  ideal  conception  of  marriage,  foreign  to  antiquity,  was 


1  John,  xii.,  25. 


2  2  Cor.,  vi.,  10. 


§53. 


90 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


derived,  found  no  one  in  his  times  whose  heart  was  worthy 
of  Bucli  a  union."  ^  He  speaks  of  the  "  true  humanitarian 
spirit "  which  Jesus  showed  with  respect  to  ascetic  rules,  and 
finds  that  the  peculiar  culture  of  Jesus  consists  "in  his 
religious  perfection,  the  flower  of  all  purely  human  striving."  2 
Similarly,  Keim,  in  his  Hlstorij  of  Jesus  :  ^  No  religious  re- 
former ever  took  such  loving  interest  in  all  the  forms  of 
earthly  life  as  he  did,  no  one  lived  so  "  like  a  man  of  the 
world  ;"  *  in  another  place  he  even  speaks  of  a  "  comfortable, 
easy-going  congeniality"  (behagliche  stillsiizende  Gemuthlich- 
hcit)  which  the  character  of  Jesus  encouraged.^  In  the  con- 
flict with  the  Pharisees  concerning  the  Sabbath  he  comes  out 
victorious,  "  because  he  modestly  and  overwhelmingly  unfolds 
the  banner  of  humanity."  ^ 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  writings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment transmit  features  of  the  life  of  Jesus  and  sayings  from 
liis  teachings,  which  may  be  utilized  for  such  a  picture. 
Whether  they  indicate  different  stages  of  development  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  itself,  as  Renan,  for  example,  assumes,  or 
whether  his  teachings  and  the  conception  we  have  of  him 
have   been  distorted  by   tradition,  say  by   Ebionitic  inter- 

1  §45. 

2  §  29. 

8  3d  ed.,  1875.     [Engl,  translation  by  Ransom  and  Geldart,  1876.] 
4  p   165  ^  P.  145. 

6  p'.  199'.  David  Strauss  does  not  go  so  far  in  his  Life  of  Jesus  [tr.  by  George 

Eliot]  in  misrepresenting  the  essence  of  Christianity.     But  he,  too,  speaks  of  the 

"  humane  love  of  Jesus/'  of  "  the  cheerful  soul  at  peace  with  God  and  embracmg 

all  men  as  brothers,"  and  calls  this  "  cheerful,  vigorous  element,  this  acting  from 

the  pleasure  and  joyf ulness  of  a  beautiful  soul,  the  Hellenic  element  m  Je^^^-  Jo 

b.  sure,  he  also  emphasizes  the  fact  that  there  are  essentia      defects  m  the  human- 

ity  "  of  Jesus  :  family,  state,  acquisition,  art.  and  beautiful  enjoyment  do  not^U 

within  its  scope.     But  this  one-sidedness,  he  says,  is  partly  ^'^^^«  Jj^^^^  ^^ 

natiorualitv,  partlv  to  the  conditions  of  the  times  ;  besides,  it  can  easily  be  remedied 

bv  different  temporal,  political,  and   educational  conditions,  and  ;e"^«d»«^^;^ 

the  best  way  only  after  we  have  come  to  understand  the  work  of  Jesus  ^  a 

human  achievement,  hence  as  capalde  and  in  need  of  further  ^eve  opment  (^^e 

of  Jesns,  4th  ed.,  1.  262.  TT.  .'^88).     Tn  his  last  work  (The  Old  and  the  Ne^  Farh 

§  24.  tr.  by  M.  Blind),  Strauss,  influenced  by  Schopenhauer,  seems  to  draw  the 

iines  more  sharply  between  Christianity  and  the  world. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


91 


pretations,  as  Hase  believes,  or  by  the  opposite,  which  would 
be  more  in  line  with  the  natural  man's  inclinations,  — indeed, 
during  his  lifetime    his  disciples  could  not  free  themselves 
from  the  notion  that  he  was  to  set  up  a  worldly  kingdom 
invested  with  all  the  power  and  glory  of  such  a  kingdom,  — 
upon  this  point  1  do  not  venture  to  express  an  opinion.     1 
share  Strauss's  view  that  it  is  a  hopeless  undertaking  to  write 
a  true  history  of  the  life  and  development  of  Jesus,  on  the 
basis  of  the  sources  at  our  command ;  and  there  also  seem 
to  me  to  be  insurmountable  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  sys- 
tematic exposition  of  the  teachings  contained  in  his  sermons. 
Disconnected  sayings  and  parables  are  handed  down  to  us, 
which  cannot  be  comprehended  into  a  unified  philosophical 
system;   which,  of  course,  does  not  diminish  their  value; 
on  the  contrary,  the  Gospels  owe  their  wonderful  power  to 
the  fact  that  they  do  not  form  a  theological  or  philosophical 
system.     Systems  pass  away,  concepts  are  tools  with  which 
an  age  apprehends  and  fashions  things;  and  in  a  certain 
sense  every  age  must  produce  its  own  tools,  in  order  that  it 
may  manipulate  them   satisfactorily.     The  great  poems,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  eternal,  like  their  content,  human  life 
itself.     There  is  no  condition  in  life,  and  no  mood  which  will 
not  find  in  the  Scriptures,  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
a  story  or  a  saying  to  express  it,  from  which  to  draw  conso- 
lation in  adversity  and  inspiration  in  prosperity.     Had  these 
books  merely  transmitted  to  us  a  philosophical  system,  they 
would  have  grown  old  and  perished  long  ago ;  but  they  por- 
tray human  life  as  it  is,  with  all  its  joys  and  sorrows,  and 
hence  they  are  imperishable. 

But  of  one  thing  there  is  no  doubt  m  my  mind,  and  that 
is  this  :  The  Gospels,  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,  breathe 
the  spirit  of  world-denial  (  Weltverleugnung)  rather  than  that 
of  earthly  joy.  In  what  moods  do  men  most  frequently  turn 
to  these  writings  ?  In  the  exultation  of  victory  and  rejoicing, 
or  in  the  sorrow  of  defeat,  in  the  throes  of  sickness  and  death  ? 


92 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  THILOSOPHY 


No  one  will  hesitate  for  an  answer.     Hearts  bowed  down  by 
suffering  and  oppressed  with  sin,  world-weary  and  life-weary 
hearts,  —  these  have  invariably  sought  and  found  consola- 
tion and  relief  in  the  Gospels.     The  powerful  and  victorious, 
the  hopeful  and  prosperous,  are  more  apt  to  find  their  feelings 
expressed  in  Greek  philosophy  and  in  the  Odes  of  Horace. 
Nor  is  there  any  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  soul  of  Jesus,  too, 
was  attuned,  not  to  happiness  and  victory,  and  life  of  life,  but 
to  death  and  world-denial.     And  would  it  not  have  been  a 
most  remarkable  confusion  if  Christianity  had  taken  as  its 
starting-point  the  Jesus  of  Hase  ?    Hase  believes  that  if  Jesus 
had  been  a  disciple  of  the  Essenes,  they  would  have  cursed 
him  as  an  apostate  :  "  How  these  gloomy  pietists  would  have 
shaken  their  pious  heads  and  rolled  their  devout  eyes  at  this 
cheerful  and  energetic  man."     But  how  strange,  then,  that 
this  man  looked  upon  the  Baptist,  that  powerful  figure,  so 
unique  in  his  rugged  greatness,  as  his  forerunner,  that  he  pro- 
duced a  Paul,  who  made  such  a  sharp  distinction  between  the 
flesh  and  the  spirit,  that  the  apostolic  church,  leaning  as  it 
did  towards  Ebionitism,  the  entire  primitive  church,  with  its 
ethical  supernaturalism,  followed  his  banner.     Was  all  that  a 
single  grand  mistake  ?     It  seems  strange  to  me  th^t  any  one 
should  attempt  to  correct  this  living  tradition  by  means  of  the 
scanty  fragments  of  the  great  living  tradition,  which  have 
been  preserved  in  the  Gospels.     If  the  oldest  communities, 
which  counted  among  their  number  the  living  witnesses  of  the 
life,  teachings,  and  death  of  Jesus,  did  not  know  what  these 
things  meant,  then  it  is  not  probable  that  we  of  the  nineteenth 
century  shall  discover  it  by  historical  investigations. 

This  inability  to  understand  Christianity  is  evidently  due 
to  the  fact  that  it  has  not  yet  become  "  historic."  If  it,  to- 
gether with  its  effects,  were  a  thing  of  the  past,  a  purely 
historical  investigation  would  not  long  remain  in  doubt  as 
to  its  fundamental  character.  But  such  is  not  the  case  ;  we 
are  still  surrounded,  on  all  sides,  if  not  by  primitive  Ohris* 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


93 


tianity  itself,  at  least  by  its  embodied  effects.  Our  very  lan- 
guage betrays  the  influence  which  Christianity  has  exercised 
upon  it  for  centuries :  no  one  would  be  willing  to  dispense  with 
at  least  the  name  of  a  Christian.  This  explains  the  tendency 
which  every  man  has  to  interpret  Christianity  conformably 
with  his  ideal  of  life.  It  also  explains  why  we  discover  in 
the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  the  very  views  of  life  and 
the  world  which  we  ourselves  entertain,  with,  at  most,  a  few 
slight  changes  here  and  there.  For  the  champion  of  a  con- 
servative state  church  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Christianity 
consists  in  subjecting  oneself  to  those  in  power,  in  respecting 
the  institutions  of  the  state  and  the  church,  the  family  and 
property.  Liberal  Protestantism,  on  the  other  hand,  sees  in 
Jesus  the  man  who  preached  freedom,  who  broke  the  fetters 
of  Jewish  orthodoxy,  who  despised  the  ascetic  ordinances ; 
hence  he  was  evidently  an  advocate  of  the  principle  of  free 
research,  one  of  the  great  heroes  of  civilization,  who  delivered 
man  from  the  yoke  of  superstition  and  turned  him  in  the 
direction  of  progress ;  in  our  times  he  would  have  been  a 
liberal  professor  of  theology,  or,  according  to  others,  a  social 
reformer. 

Est  liber  hie,  in  quo  quserit  sua  dogmata  quisque ; 
Invenit  in  illo  dogmata  quisque  sua. 

But;  you  will  say,  is  it  not  true  that  Jesus  had  a  low 
opinion  of  ascetic  practices  ?  Did  he  not,  in  contrast  with 
the  Baptist,  absolve  his  disciples  of  the  duty  of  following 
them  ?  Did  he  not  thereby  give  such  offence  to  the  Pharisees 
that  they  called  him  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber  ?  — It  is 
true ;  although  he  did  not  prohibit  ascetic  practices,  but  took 
for  granted  that  his  disciples  would  fast,  which  they  actually 
did.  But  why  does  he  not  enforce  such  practices  ?  Perhaps, 
because  they  are  a  hindrance  to  the  enjoyment  of  life  ?  Not 
at  all ;  but  simply  because  they  do  not  suffice  ;  he  regards  them 
as  a  part  of  those  works  which  the  Pharisees  of  all  ages  have 


94  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

offered  to  God  to  take  the  place  of  true  worship:  alms  and 
pravers  and  tithes  of  mint  and  anise  and  cumin,  mstead  of 
righteous  works  of  justice  and  love  of  neighbor;  external 
abstinence  in  lieu  of  the  sacrifice  of  one's  entire  life.    Jesus 
did  not  fail  to  see  how  prone  the  human  heart  is,  even  the 
sincere  and  well-meaning  heart,  to   deceive  God  and  itself 
in  this  manner,  and  hence  he  took  it  upon  himself  to  break 
his  disciples  of   the   habit  of   prizing  such  things.     He  de- 
manded more,  he  demanded  the  complete  separation  of  the 
heart  from  the  world  and  entire  devotion  to  God.     The  per- 
fect man  needs  no  further  preparation ;  he  who  is  imbued 
with  the  new  spirit  no  longer  needs  to  practise  those  little 
abstinences,  he  has  no  use  for  them ;  which,  of  course  does 
not  mean  that  they  cannot  be  of  service  and  of  benefit  to 
the  novice.     Paul  describes  the  life  of  the  perfect  Christian : 
"  It  remaincth,  that  both  they  that  have  wives  be  as  though 
they  had  none ;  and  those  that  weep  as  though  they  wept  not ; 
and  thev  that  rejoice  as  though  they  rejoiced  not ;  and  they 
that  buy  as  though  they  possessed  not;  and  they  that  use  this 
world  as  not  abusing  it :  for  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth 
away."  ^     Whoever  has  so  thoroughly  emancipated  himself 
from  the  world  does  not  stand  in  need  of  such  preparation. 

Now,  that  such  a  state  is  not  adapted  to  promote  what  is 
called  civilization  can  hardly  be  doubted :  he  whose  heart  is 
in  heaven  will  not  be  very  apt  to  make  this  earthly  life  rich 
and  beautiful  and  grand,  nor  will  he  on  that  account  have 
any  censure  to  fear  from  Jesus.  The  Gospels  nowhere  say : 
Accumulate  wealth  and  save,  care  for  your  own  and  the 
economic  welfare  of  your  family.  But  they  do  say:  "Take 
no  thought  of  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall 
drink ;  nor  yet  for  your  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on ;  lay  not 
up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth,  where  moth  and  rust 
doth  corrupt,  and  thieves  break  through  and  steal."  We  no- 
where read :  Have  a  care  for  the  development  of  your  natural 

»  1  Cor.,  vii.,  29  ft. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


95 


capacities ;  train  the  body  by  gymnastic  exercises,  make  it 
strong  and  beautiful ;  train  the  intellect  and  the  senses,  so 
that  you  may  appreciate  the  creations  of  art  and  poetry,  the 
products  of  philosophy  and  science.  But  we  do  read :  "  If 
one  of  thy  members  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out  and  cast  it 
from  thee."  We  nowhere  read :  Try  to  obtain  honors,  help 
your  friends  to  achieve  fame  and  position ;  but  we  do  read : 
"  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile  you ! "  We  nowhere 
read  :  Go  and  take  a  wife,  and  rear  able  citizens  for  the  state ; 
but  we  do  read :  "  There  be  eunuchs  which  have  made  them- 
selves eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake."  We  no- 
where read  :  Go  and  serve  the  state  with  thy  sword  or  with 
thy  counsel ;  but  we  do  read :  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world."  We  nowhere  read :  Go  and  labor  for  the  happiness 
of  the  human  race ;  the  word  happiness  or  its  equivalent 
does  not  even  occur  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament. 
But  we  do  read :   "  The  world  passeth  away  and  the  lusts 

thereof." 

If  Jesus  really  believed  that  his  disciples  ought  to  make 
themselves  useful  to  the  world,  not  by  preaching  the  transi- 
torin(5s8  of  everything  earthly  and  the  eternal  kingdom,  but 
by  taking  part  in  the  work  which  the  world  itself  regards  as 
important   and   great,  then,   indeed,   it   must  be   confessed, 
he  left  nothing  undone  to  be  misunderstood.     If,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  his  purpose  to  exhort  men,  by  his  example  and 
his  teachings,  to  overcome  the  world,  then  we  have  the  right 
to  say  .  His  preaching  was  as  intelligible  as  it  was  effective. 
Indeed,  no  one  has  hitherto  succeeded  in  wholly  obscuring 
his  meaning.     Contemtus  mundi  and  amor  Christi  are  the 
inscriptions  upon  the  two  curtains  enshrouding  the  hidden 
sanctuary  in  which  dwells  the  community  of  Christ ;  so  Amos 
Comenius   describes  it  in   his  Lahyrinth  of  the  World  and 
Paradise  of  the  HeaH.     Contemtiis  mmdi  alone  is  not  Chris- 
tianitv ;  without  amor  Christi  it   becomes   Schopcnhauerian 
pessimism  or  Nietzschean  tyrant-morality ;  nor,  on  the  other 


96 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CONCEPTION 


97 


hand,  can  there  be  Christianity  without  an  admixture  of  con^ 

temtus  mvndi. 

But  the  man  who  is  unable  to  glean  the  meaning  of  Chris- 
tianity either  from  the  sermons  of  Jesus  himself  or  from  the 
interpretations  of  the  apostles,  may  learn  something  from 
the  way  in  which  it  was  received  by  the  world.     Had  Jesiis 
been  such  an  amiable  preacher  of  human  world-wisdom,  his 
contemporaries   would   most  likely   not  have  considered   it 
necessary  to  nail  him  to  a  cross :  the  amiable,  proper,  and 
charming  people,  who  live  and  let  live,  who  understand  the 
art  of  combining  "religion"   with  "culture,"    who   incline 
toward  "  easy-going  congeniality  "  and  enjoy  "  the  pleasures 
of  a  social  cup,"  have  never  been  regarded  as  dangerous, 
and  nailed  to  crosses.     If  the  Christianity  of  the  early  times 
had  been  what  the  interpreters  of  later  ages  have  now  and 
then  made  of  it,  the  deadly  enmity  which  it  aroused  in  the 
world  would  be  absolutely  inconceivable.     The  apostles  did 
not  consider  it  so ;  they  evidently  regarded  the  treatment  they 
received  as  perfectly  in  order.     Jesus  had  prophesied  it :  "  Ye 
shall  be  hated  of  all  men  for  my  name's  sake."     "  If  ye  were 
of  the  world,  the  world  would  love  his  own;  but  because  ye 
are  not  of  the  world,  but  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  the  world, 
therefore  the  world  hateth  you."     "  The  time  cometh  that 
whosoever  killeth  you  will  think  that  he  doth  God  service." 
Nothing  was  prophesied  oftener  and  more  distinctly  by  Jesus, 
and  none  of  his  prophecies  was  ever  more  accurately  fulfilled. 
—  Why  this  hatred  ?    Because  the  Christians  despised  what 
the  world  conceived  to  be  the  highest  good.    There  was  no 
better  reason  for  hating  any  one.    He  that  did   not  look 
upon  the  Emperor  and  the  Empire  as  the  highest  good,  did 
he    not    deserve   to  be  hated?    He   that  despised  culture 
and  science,  did  he  not  deserve  to  be  hated?    He  that  de- 
spised  wealth  and  good  living  and  social  recognition,  who 
withdrew  from    society   and    amusements,  did  he  not  de- 
serve to  be  hated  ?    Was  he  not  really  scorning  others,  if  not 


in  words,  at  least  by  his  mode  of  life  ?  He  that  is  not  for 
me  is  against  me.  This  is  the  maxim  which  has '  always 
governed  the  feelings  and  actions  of  men.^ 

1  There  is  no  better  commentary  on  the  Gospels  than  the  life  of  Savonarola 
as  it  is  described  in  the  admirable  work  of  tlie  Italian  Villari  [English  transla- 
tion by  L.  Villari].  The  life  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels  is  like  a  series  of  saintly 
pictures  drawn  upon  a  golden  background,  in  wliich  the  chief  figure  stands  out 
in  bold  relief,  but  without  its  background ;  the  life  of  Savonarola,  on  the  other 
hand,  resembles  a  great  historical  painting  with  a  multicolored  background. 
The  fundamental  outlines  are  the  same  ;  the  particular  features  recur  with  as- 
tonishing regularity :  the  preaching  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  vanity  of 
the  world  and  its  pleasures,  its  power  and  glory,  its  civilization  and  art,  at  first 
produces  a  strange  excitement,  especially  in  the  hearts  of  the  common  people ; 
they  applaud  the  great  preacher  and  miracle-worker.  Then  the  lords  of  this 
world,  spiritual  and  secular,  get  together  and  deliberate  how  to  check  the 
scandal  which  is  destroying  peace  and  progress ;  they  convince  themselves  that 
it  can  only  be  done  by  removing  the  disturber.  He  is  brought  to  trial  amid  the 
applause  of  all  the  educated  ones,  and  is  finally  executed  as  a  false  prophet, 
swindler,  and  pretended  miracle-worker,  who  cannot  save  himself,  with  the 
curses  of  the  fanatical  populace  ringing  in  his  ears.  —  Here  again,  moreover,  we 
may  find  the  word  of  Aristotle  corroborated,  that  poetry  is  more  "  philosophical " 
than  history.  That  the  Gospels  are  not  historical  accounts  like  those  we  have  of 
the  life  of  Savonarola  or  Goethe,  no  one  will  doubt  who  is  willing  to  follow  a 
critical  investigation  like  the  one  offered  by  Strauss.  They  are  historical  poems 
born  of  the  faith  that  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  are  the  absolutely  important 
facts  of  history.  To  this  day  they  have  shown  a  unique  and  incomparable  power 
in  expressing  and  propagating  this  faith.  If  we  had  a  "  scientific  "  biography  of 
Jesus,  one  based  upon  the  most  thorough  research  and  drawn  from  the  most 
reliable  and  copious  sources,  and  written  in  the  most  admirable  manner,  like  the 
above  mentioned  life  of  Savonarola,  for  example,  its  influence  would,  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Gospels,  still  be  equal  to  zero.  If  efficacy  (  Wirksamkeit)  is 
the  standard  of  reality  (  Wirklichkeit),  as  the  German  language  seems  to  imply, 
then  the  truth  will  remain  that  the  Gospels  are  the  greatest  *'  reality  "  {das  Wirk- 
lichste)  ever  made  by  human  hands.  —  It  seems  to  me  this  is  occasionally  forgot- 
ten by  the  critics  of  the  Gospels  as  well  as  by  those  who  are  afraid  of  criticism 
—  as  though  the  Gospels  could  be  destroyed  by  it.  "  For  the  letter  killeth,  but 
the  spirit  giveth  life." 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF  THE  OLD   WORLD 


99 


CHAPTER  ni 

THE  CONVERSION  OF  THE  OLD  WORLD  TO  CHRISTIANriY  * 

1    Among  all  the  occurrences  recorded  by  history  none  is 
more  astonishing  than  the   conversion  of  the  old  world  to 
Christianity.     Never  was  there  a  spiritual  movement  which 
seemed  so  lacking  in  everything  calculated  to  conquer  the 
world,  as  Christianity.     When  Jesus  died,  he  left  behmd  a 
handful  of  followers,  not  a  great  fruit,  it  seemed,  of  such  a 
life-work.    And  these  followers  were  poor,  uneducated  people, 
without  science,  without  wealth,  without  fame,  without  cour- 
a-e,  except  in  suffering,  without  a  single  passion  except  a 
strancre  fanatical  enthusiasm  for  a  kingdom  in  a  transmundane 
world".     This  is  the  impression  which  Christianity  made  upon 
those  who  witnessed  its  birth  and  early  growth.    Originating 
among  the  most  despised  of  all  nations,  the  Jews,;  consistmg 
in  the  worship  of  a  man  who  had  been  ca.st  out  by  this  people 
as  an  idle  dreamer  and  deceiver,  and  had  died  on  the  cross,  it 
seemed  that,  weighed  down  with  the  contempt  and  hatred  of 
the  cultured,  it  would,  like  so  many  other  superstitions   of 
the  age,  soon  sink  into  an  inglorious  oblivion. 

In  a  posthumous  work  of  Th.  Keim,  Rome  and  Christian- 
ity'^ may  be  found  references  from  Graeco-Roman  litera- 
ture which  describe  the  feelings  which  Christianity  aroused 
among  its  contemporaries  :  they  are  contempt  and  hatred. 
"  The  Christians,"   so  says  the  philosopher  Celsus  (under 

1  [Leckv,  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  L,  chap.  Ill ;  '^ff^''^^l\^'' 
Sittengeschichte  Rom's  (translated  into  French)  ;  Keim.  Rom  und  das  Christen, 
thum  ;  Baur  (see  p.  G5),  Part  I. ;  Fisher  (see  p.  65.)  —Tr] 

a  Published  by  II.  Ziegler,  1881. 


Marcus  Aurelius),  "  purposely  and  expressly  exclude  all  wise 
and  educated  men  from  their  meetings,  and,  like  the  quacks 
having  the  poorest  wares,  turn  their  attention  only  to  the  un- 
cultured rabble.  Nay,  they  do  not,  as  priests  usually  do, 
appeal  to  the  pure  and  sinless,  but  to  the  unfortunate  and 
sinful,  to  the  criminals ;  as  though  God  did  not  accept  the  sin- 
less, as  though  he  were,  like  a  weak  man,  influenced  by  the 
laments  of  the  wicked,  and  not  by  the  justice  of  his  judgment. 
This,  however,  the  Christians  merely  do  because  they  cannot 
gain  adherents  among  honest  and  upright  people."  ^  This  was 
the  opinion  of  the  philosophers.  The  masses  detested  them 
as  atheists,  of  whom  it  was  believed  that  they  committed  the 
most  hideous  crimes  in  their  secret  gatherings.^  The  states- 
men, who  really  did  not  begin  to  pay  any  attention  to  Chris- 
tianity until  the  second  century  —  the  persecutions  of  the 
first  century  were  outbreaks  of  temporary  moods  —  regarded 
it  as  an  obnoxious  weed,  which  the  interests  of  the  state  and 
society  demanded  should  be  eradicated.  Trajan  gave  his  gov- 
ernors orders  to  this  effect :  ''  The  Christians  shall  not  be 
hounded,  but  if  they  are  accused  and  convicted,  they  shall 
suffer  capital  punishment.  But  if  the  offender  denies  Christi- 
anity and  proves  it  by  doing  homage  to  our  gods,  he  shall  be 
pardoned  for  his  past  offence."  ^  This  was,  in  the  main,  the 
attitude  of  the  government  during  the  second  century  ;  we 
shall  have  to  agree  with  Keim  that  a  more  appropriate  method 
of  suppressing  Christianity  could  not  have  been  chosen.  By 
keeping  the  mean  between  exemption  from  punishment  and 
persecution,  the  state,  on  the  one  hand,  hindered  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  new  religion  as  the  officially  allowed  or  recognized 
form  of  worship,  and,  on  the  other,  deprived  it  of  that  attrac- 
tiveness with  which  persecution  always  invests  a  cause  :  only 
the  senseless  obstinacy  which  expressly  refused,  when  asked, 
to  show  any  respect  for  the  gods  of  the  state  and  people, 
was  punished.     For,  an  age  which  was  in  the  habit  of  looking 


1  402. 


2  362  ff. 


8  520. 


100  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

upon  worship  partly  as  the  duty  of  the  subject,  partly  as  the 
satisfaction  of  harmless  private  desires,  could  not  but  regard 
such  refusal  as  "  mere  obstinacy,"  as  Marcus  Aurehus  con- 
temptuously  calls  the  attitude  of  the  Christians. 

And  yet  the  incredible  happened.  Christianity  gradually 
spread  until  it  finally  became  the  ruling  religion  in  the  great 
federation  of  nations  of  the  Roman  Empire.  How  was  i 
possible  for  the  old  world  to  desert  its  religion?  How  did  it 
come  about  that  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were  converted 
to  a  religion  which  despised  everything  that  no  Greek  and  no 
Roman  could  despise  without  repudiating  himself :  science 
and  philosophy,  poetry  and  art,  fatherland  and  gods? 

2    Every  attempt  to  understand  this  process  will  always 
find  itself  driven  to  conclusions  which  have  often  been  drawn. 
The  old  world  had  outlived  itself;  the  principle  of  its  life 
was  dying.     The  city-state  was  the  form  of  ancient  life,  free 
sovereign  citizenship  was  the  bearer  of  the  ancient  virtues. 
The  city-states  had  been  ruined,  internally  and  externa  ly ; 
internally,  by  the  splitting-up  of  the  citizens  into  the  two  f ac 
tions  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  which  antagonized  each  other 
in   bloody   conflicts ;   externally,  by   their   incorporation   m 
the   Roman  Empire.     The   entire   world  was   ruled   by   the 
Roman  court.    "  Have  I  not,"  so  Seneca  lets  the  Emperor 
say  in  his  work  On  Mercy?  with  which  he  flatteringly  greeted 
the  youthful  Nero  upon  the  latter's  accession  to  the  throne, 
u  have  I  not  been  chosen  from  all  mortals  to  govern  as  the 
representative  of  the   gods  upon   earth  ?     Am  T   not  judge 
over  the  life  and  death  of  nations  ?     Do  not  the  fate  and 
the  position  of  every  individual  rest  in  my  hands  ?     Does  not 
Fortune  proclaim  through  my  mouth  what  she  is  willing  to 
bestow  upon  every  one  ?    Are  not  our  decrees  the  cause  of 
iubilation  among  nations  and  cities  ?     Can  any  part  of  the 
empire  thrive  without   my  will,  without  my  favor  ?    These 
many  thousand  swords  which  are  kept  in  their  scabbards  by 

1  Reflections,  XL,  3.  ^  De  dementia,  I,  2. 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF  THE  OLD  WORLD  101 

my  decrees  of  peace,  are  they  not  drawn  at  my  beck  and 
command  ?  Is  it  not  at  my  behest  that  nations  are  exter- 
minated or  transplanted,  that  freedom  is  given  or  taken 
away,  that  kings  are  sentenced  to  slavery  or  crowned,  that 
cities  are  destroyed  and  built  ? "  And  now  when  this  supra- 
human  power,  as  often  happened,  became  the  sport  of  freed- 
men  and  courtesans,  what  an  awful  abyss  of  corruption 
yawned  before  the  Romans  and  poisoned  all  nations  and 
princes  with  its  foul  odors. 

In  such  an  empire  there  was  no  more  room  for  the  old 
virtues.     Among  the  ancient  nations  all  virtues  and  excel- 
lences were  connected  with  the  state,  totally  differing  from 
the  modern  virtues  in  this  respect.    The  four  cardinal  virtues, 
prudence,  courage,  justice,  temperance,  are  essentially  civic 
virtues.    The  destruction  of  the  old  communities  deprived 
them  of  the  soil  upon  which  they  flourished  and  were  prac- 
tised.    In  place  of  courage  and  justice,  subserviency  and  the 
arts  of  flattery,  treachery  and  violence,  became  the  means 
of  acquiring  wealth,  power,   and   dignity;  in  the  imperial 
period  the  goodness  of   a  few  emperors  could  not  prevent 
these   things,   except  to  a  very  limited   degree  and   within 
narrow  circles.      With  the  ancient   manliness  {virtus)   and 
honorableness,  the  virtue  of  temperance  passed  away.     Pomp 
and  luxury  on  the  one   side,  and   proletarian  wretchedness 
on   the   other,  took  the    place   of   beautiful   and    moderate 

enjoyment. 

Friedlander  has  given  us  in  his  History  of  the  Morals  of 
Rome^  an  authentic  account  of  the  life  of  the  imperial  city 
during  the  first  two  centuries.  If  I  can  trust  my  own  im- 
pressions, no  one  will  lay  the  book  aside  without  a  feeling  of 
horror,  although  it  was  not  written  with  the  intention  of 
producing  that  effect :  with  so  much  wealth  and  power,  so 
much  splendor  and  greatness,  such  a  terribly  empty  and 
desolate  life !    The  chief  purpose  of  this  vast  empire  seems  to 

1  Sittengeschichte  Rom*s, 


102 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


■It 


have  been  to  feed  and  amuse  the  populace  of  the  metropolis. 
Rome  was  not  an  industrial  city,  she  really  had  no  commerce 
and  manufacture,  but  only  an  enormous  import :  from  all  parts 
of  the  world  commodities  were  brought  thither  for  consump- 
tion.    The  distribution  of  these  commodities  by  shopkeepers 
constituted  one  of  the  most  desired  sources  of  revenue  of  the 
third  estate.    The  public  administration  seems  to  have  been 
essentially  an  institution  for  the  exploitation  of  the  provinces 
by  the  relatives  of  the  families  who  belonged  to  good  society, 
the  senatorial  and  equestrian  classes.    The  population  of  the 
city  was  divided  into  two  halves :  the  ruling  families,  who 
drained  the  provinces,  and  the  masses,  who  in  turn  lived  as 
parasites  upon  these  vampires.    "  All  the  people  whom  you  see 
in  this  city,"  writes  Pctronius,  "  are  divided  into  two  parties : 
they  are  either  angling  for  something  or  being  angled ; "  or, 
using  another  figure :  «  You  will  behold  a  city  that  resembles 
a  fierd  during  a  pestilence,  which  contains  nothing  but  corpses, 
and  ravens  which  are  devouring  them."  i     The  ravens  were 
the  swarms  of  clients,  beggars,  legacy-hunters,  singers,  actors, 
artists,  astrologers,  parasites  of  all  kinds ;  the  corpses  upon 
which   they  fed  were  the  owners  of  large  estates,  the  large 
capitalists,   who  squandered   at  Rome  what  their  ancestors 
had   made    by  administering  the   provinces,  or  what  they 
had  themselves  in  turn  acquired  through  gifts,  legacy-hunt- 
ing   etc.     Every  noble  house  supported,  besides  its  army  of 
slaves,  an   army   of   clients,   whose   sole   function  consisted 
in  proving  by  their  mere  presence  the  noble  rank  of  the  man 
in  whose" atrium  they  appeared  early   In  the   morning,  and 
whom  they  accompanied  on  his  walks.     They  were  rewarded 
for  their  services  by  receiving  board  or  alimony  and  occasional 
presents  ;  niggardly  enough,  of  course,  in  the  opinion  of  those 

who  received  them. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  masses  of  the  metropolitan  popula- 
tion were  directly  fed  by  the  state,  even  during  the  latter 

1    Friedlander,  I.,  371. 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF  THE   OLD  WORLD  103 

days  of  the  Republic.  According  to  Uhlhorn,i  c.  Gracchus 
was  the  first  to  have  a  law  enacted,  which  provided  for  the 
sale  of  wheat  to  Roman  citizens  by  the  state  at  cost  price ; 
soon  after  it  was  distributed  gratis.  Cajsar  is  said  to  have 
found  as  many  as  320,000  receivers  of  grain  in  the  city,  and 
to  have  reduced  the  number  to  150,000.  Under  Augustus 
it  again  rose  to  about  200,000  (for  about  one  and  one  half 
millions  of  inhabitants).  They  also  received  gifts  of  oil,  salt, 
meat,  and  money ;  on  all  extraordinary  occasions,  accessions  to 
the  throne,  anniversaries,  testaments,  there  was  always  some- 
thing left  over  for  « the  people ;  "  Uhlhorn  estimates  the 
average  amount  of  annual  contributions  in  money  at  about 

six  million  marks. 

The  second  great  object  of  concern  of  the  governing  classes 
was  to  amuse  the  masses.    To  this  end  theatres,  games  in 
the  circus  and  amphitheatre,  baths,  etc.,  were    instituted. 
In  these  matters,  too,  the  beginning  had  already  been  made 
under  the  Republic  ;  the  competition  for  the  good  will  of  the 
voters  constantly  increased  the  expenditures  for  the  games 
which  the  successful  candidates  had  to  arrange.    During  the 
Empire,  races,  gladiatorial  contests,  and  plays,  especially  the 
first,  took   the  place   of  public  business.     "It  is  to  your 
advantage,  Csesar,  that  the  people   occupy  themselves  with 
us,"  a  pantomime  once  called  out  to  Augustus."    The  splendor 
and  grandeur  as  well  as  the  number  of  the  games  constantly 
increased  under  the  succeeding  emperors.     Under  Augustus 
they  occupied  sixty-six  days  according  to  the  festival-calen- 
dar, under  Tiberius  the  number  increased  to  eighty-seven  days, 
not  counting  the  frequent  gladiatorial  contests ;  in  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century  it  was  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
days.     In  addition  there  were  extraordinary  games :   at  the 
dedication  of  the  Flavian  amphitheatre  Titus  gave  a  festival 
lasting  one  hundred  days ;  in  commemoration  of  the  second 

1  Geschkhte  der  christUchen  LiebeslhStigkeit  in  der  alter,  Kirche,  pp.  10  ft. 

2  Friedlander,  H.,  257. 


104 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY 


Dacian  victory  Trajan  gave  a  festival  lasting  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  days.  All  the  greater  performances  be- 
gan at  daybreak  and  lasted  till  sunset.  The  number  of 
seats  in  the  three  theatres  together  was  49,590,  in  the 
amphitheatre  87,000,  in  the  circus,  under  Caesar,  150,000, 
under  Vespasian,  250,000,  in  the  fourth  century,  385,000. 
The  emperor  frequently  also  provided  the  spectators  with  re- 
freshments. "At  a  festival,  which  Domitian  gave  in  the 
year  88,  the  number  of  young,  beautiful,  and  richly  attired 
imperial  servants,  who  waited  upon  the  people  in  the  ami)hi- 
theatre  was,  according  to  Statius's  account,  as  great  as  the 
number  of  spectators.  Some  brought  costly  viands  in  baskets 
and  white  table-cloths,  others  old  wines.  Children  and 
women,  the  populace,  the  nobles,  and  the  senate,  everybody 
feasted  as  at  a  table  ;  the  Emperor  himself  condescended  to 
take  part  in  the  meal,  and  the  poorest  man  felt  happy  in  the 
knowledge  that  he  was  his  guest."  ^ 

The  festival   was  held   in   the  amphitheatre;   the   centre 
around  which  the  large  company  gathered  was  the  arena,  the 
great  slaughter-house  in  which  criminals,  slaves,  and  finally, 
above  all,  prisoners  of  war  from  all  nations,  after  first  having 
been  trained  for  the  purpose  in  the  gladiatorial  schools,  killed 
each  other  for  the  delectation  of  the  guests  of  the  emperor. 
Under  Augustus,  a  total  of  10,000  men  fought  in  the  eight 
combats  which  he   arranged;    in  the  festival   lasting  four 
months,  which  Trajan  gave  after  the  conquest  of  Dacia,  as 
many  as  10,000  men.     Thus  the  captives  of  war  of  all  nations 
had  the  honor  of  fighting  once  more  before  the  lord  of  the 
earth  and  of  dying  under  his  very  eyes.     With  the  blood  of 
all  tlie  nations  was  mingled  in  the  arena  the  blood  of  all  the 
animal   species   of    the   earth.     In    the    games    of    Pompey 
were   seen  IT   elephants,  500  to   600   lions,  and   410   other 
African    beasts.      In    the    26    games    alone,    instituted   by 
Augustus,   about    3,500   African   animals  were  hunted   and 

1  Friedlauder.ir.,  277. 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF   THE   OLD   WORLD 


105 


slaughtered ;  at  the  dedication  of  the  Flavian  amphitheatre, 
imder  Titus,  about  9,000  tame  and  wild  animals.  New 
and  more  refined  settings  were  invented :  nocturnal  combats 
were  added,  sea-fights  alternated  with  land-battles,  tlie 
arena  being  flooded  with  water.  And  around  this  scene  of 
blood  and  horror  were  gathered  the  emperor  and  the  senators, 
the  people  and  nobility,  men  and  women,  eating  and  drinking, 
laughing  and  courting,  shouting  and  roaring:  a  scene  of 
horror,  a  city  of  horror,  the  like  of  which  has  never  been 
witnessed  upon  this  earth.  The  history  of  the  morality  of 
Kome  is  the  commentary  to  the  Apocalypse. 

The  provinces  followed  the  example  of  the  capital,  the 
governors  the  example  of  the  emperor.  In  all  the  cities  we 
find  the  same  division  of  society  into  vampires  and  parasites. 
By  distributing  offices  and  honors,  the  municipalities  them- 
selves sponged  upon  the  wealth  of  the  few ;  in  addition  to  this, 
a  countless  train  of  clients  fastened  itself  upon  the  rich  house- 
holds. In  all  the  cities  we  find  gladiatorial  contests  and 
animal-hunts ;  "  There  was  not  a  single  city  from  Jerusalem 
to  Seville,  from  England  to  Northern  Africa,  in  whose  arena 
numerous  victims  were  not  slaughtered  year  after  year." 
The  Greek  populace  alone  retained  a  trace  of  its  former 
refinement  and  culture,  and  only  gradually  and  with  difficulty 
found  pleasure  in  these  games  ;  while  the  cultured  classes  in 
Greece  held  themselves  entirely  aloof  from  them."  ^  Nor  is  it 
likely  that  they  took  greater  pleasure  in  the  theatrical  perform- 
ances with  which  the  lords  of  the  world  were  entertained, 
the  Atellanae  and  mimes,  the  pantomimes  and  ballets.  "  By 
the  side  of  the  violent  excitement  furnished  by  the  circus  and 
the  arena,  the  stage  could  not  retain  its  attraction  for  the 
masses  except  by  offering  brutal  enjoyments  and  tickling  the 
senses  :  and  so,  instead  of  counteracting  the  pernicious  in- 
fluence of  these  other  spectacles,  it  contributed  not  the  least 
part  in  corrupting  and  brutalizing  Rome."  ^     What  an  awful 

1  Friedlander,  II.,  380  ff.  «  IL.  391. 


106 


ORIGINS   OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


CHRISTIANIZATION   OF   THE   OLD  WORLD 


107 


state  of  debauchery  resulted  from  all  this  is  shown  with 
photographic  exactness  in  a  description  which  we  have  of  the 
life  of  a  little  Italian  town,  dating  from  the  time  of  Nero : 
Tfie  Feast  of  Trimalchio  by  Petronius.^  The  coarseness  of 
taste  and  feeling  displayed  by  the  host  and  the  guests  at  the 
table  of  the  freedman  of  Cumae,  who  had  grown  rich  by  com- 
mercial speculations,  most  likely  surpasses  anything  that  has 
ever  been  witnessed  in  the  circles  of  the  parvenu  and  the 

parasite. 

3.  It  is  not  strange  that  a  feeling  of  profound  discontent 
accompanied  such  a  life.  Pleasure,  according  to  the  well- 
known  Aristotelian  dictum,  follows  efficient  action  ;  a  life  of 
idleness  and  amusement  ends  in  pain  and  nausea. 

Philosophy  is  a  mirror  of  the  feelings  of  an  age.     It  is  not 
those  addicted  to  the  life  we  have  described  who  philosophize 
—  I  mean  seriously  philosophize,  for,  of   course,  there  is  a 
«  philosopher "  among  the  parasites  of  every  noble   house- 
hold  — but  those  who  endeavor  to  fly  from  it  and  yet  cannot 
emancipate  themselves  from  their  times.     They  feel  the  utter 
nothingness  and  emptiness  of  their  existence ;  their  philoso- 
phy  is  a  philosophy  of  redemption.     The  vanity  of  all  things 
which  everybody  is  running  after,  and  the  possibility  of  being 
delivered  by  philosophy,  that  is  the  fundamental  theme  of 
the  reflections  of  Seneca,  Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius :  Seek 
the  seclusion  of  your  own  soul,  do  not  desire  what  is  not  in 
your  power,  let  the  world  go   its  way,  and  you  will   be  at 
peace.    "  Seek  not  that  the  things  which  happen  should  happen 
as  you  wish  ;  but  wish  the  things  which  happen  to  be  as  they 
are,  and  you  will  have  a  tranquil  flow  of  life."     "  When  a 
raven   has   croaked   inauspiciously,  let   not   the   appearance 
hurry  you  away  with  it ;  but  straightway  make  a  distinction 
in  your  mind  and  say,  None  of  these  things  is  signified  to 
me  but  to  my  poor  body,  or  to  my  small  property,  or  to  ray 
reputation,  or  to  my  children,  or  to  my  wife ;  but  to  me  all 

1  [English  translation  by  H.  T.  Peck,  New  York,  1898.] 


significations  are  auspicious  if  I  choose.  For  whatever  of 
these  things  results,  it  is  in  my  power  to  derive  benefit  from 
it."  "  Remember  that  in  life  you  ought  to  behave  as  at  a 
banquet.  Suppose  that  something  is  carried  around  and  is 
opposite  to  you.  Stretch  out  your  hand  and  take  a  portion 
with  decency.  Suppose  that  it  passes  by  you.  Do  not  detain 
it.  Suppose  that  it  is  not  yet  come  to  you.  Do  not  send 
your  desire  forward  to  it,  but  wait  till  it  is  opposite  to  you. 
Do  so  with  respect  to  children,  so  with  respect  to  a  wife,  so 
with  respect  to  magisterial  offices,  so  with  respect  to  wealth, 
and  you  will  be  some  time  a  worthy  partner  of  the  banquets 
of  the  gods.  But  if  you  take  none  of  the  things  which  are 
set  before  you,  and  even  despise  them,  then  you  will  be  not 
only  a  fellow  banqueter  with  the  gods,  but  also  a  partner  with 
them  in  power.  For  by  acting  thus  Diogenes  and  Heracleitus 
and  those  like  them  were  deservedly  divine,  and  were  so 
called."  "  Let  death  and  exile  and  every  other  thing  which 
appears  dreadful  be  daily  before  your  eyes ;  but  most  of  all 
death,  and  you  will  never  think  of  anything  mean  nor  will 
you  think  of  anything  extravagantly."  So  says  Epictetus.^ 
To  suffer  and  renounce :  that  is  the  final  aim  of  wisdom. 

Still  more  strongly  does  the  feeling  of  melancholy  though 
calm  resignation  appear  in  the  Bejleetions  ^  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius. "  Of  human  life  the  time  is  a  point,  and  the  substance 
is  in  a  flux,  and  the  perception  dull,  and  the  composition  of 
the  whole  body  subject  to  putrefaction,  and  the  soul  a  whirl, 
and  fortune  hard  to  divine,  and  fame  a  thing  devoid  of  judg- 
ment. And,  to  say  all  in  a  word,  everything  which  belongs 
to  the  body  is  a  stream,  and  what  belongs  to  the  soul  is  a 
dream  and  vapor,  and  life  is  a  warfare,  and  a  stranger's  so- 
journ, and  after-fame  is  oblivion.  What,  then,  is  that  which 
is  able  to  conduct  a  man  ?  One  thing  and  only  one,  philoso- 
phy.    But  this  consists  in  keeping  the  daemon  within  a  man 

1  [See  the  Enchetridion  or  Manual,  6, 18,  15,  21,  Eng.  translation  by  Long.] 
'  [Eng.  translation  bv  Long.] 


108  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

free  from  violence  and  unharmed,  superior  to  pains  and  pleas- 
ures, doing  nothing  without  a  purpose,  nor  yet  falsely  and 
with  hypocrisy,  not  feeling  the  need  of  another  man's  doing 
or  not  doing  anything ;  and  besides,  accepting  all  that  hap- 
pens, and  all  that  is  allotted,  as  coming  from  thence,  wherc- 
evcr  it  is,  from  whence  he  himself  came  ;  and,  finally,  waiting 
for  death  with  a  cheerful  mind,  as  being  nothing  else  than 
a  dissolution  of  the  elements  of  which  every  living  being  is 
compounded."  ^    "  Constantly  consider  how  all  things  as  they 
now  are,  in  time  past   also   were ;   and   consider   that   they 
will  be  the  same  again.     And  place  before  thine  eyes  entire 
dramas  and  stages  of  the  same  form,  whatever  thou   hast 
learned  from  thy  experience  or  from  older  history  ;  for  ex- 
ample,  the  whole  court  of  Hadrianus,  and  the  whole  court 
of  Antoninus,  and  the  whole  court  of  Philippus,  Alexander, 
Croesus  ;  for  all  those  were  such  dramas  as  we  now  see,  only 
with  different  actors."  »    "  The  idle  business  of  show,  plays  on 
the  stage,  flocks  of   sheep,  herds,  exercises   with  spears,  a 
bone  cast   to    little  dogs,  a  bit  of  bread  into   fish-ponds, 
laborings   of  ants   and  burden-carryings,  runnings-about  of 
frightened  little    mice,  puppets  pulled  by  strings.  ...  It  is 
thy   duty   then  in  the   midst  of  such  things  to  show   good 
humor  and  not  a  proud  air ;  to  understand,  however,  that  every 
man  is  worth  just  so  much  as  the  things  are  worth  about 
which    he   busies   himself. "»     "What,   then,  ^  is   that   about 
which   we   ought  to   employ  our  serious   pains?    This   one 
thing :  thoughts  just,  and  acts  social,  and  words  which  never 
lie,  and  a  disposition  which  gladly  accepts  all  that  happens, 
as  necessary,  as  usual,  as  flowing  from  a  principle  and  source 
of  the  same  kind."^    "Cast  away   opinion,  thou  art  saved. 
What  then  hinders  thee  from  casting  it  away?"^    "Con- 
sider that  everything  is  opinion,  and  opinion  is  in  thy  power. 
Take  away,  then,  when  thou  choosest,  thy  opinion,  and,  like 


1  II.,  17. 

a  X.,  27. 


8  VIL,  3. 
*  IV.,  33. 


»  XU.,  25. 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF  THE  OLD  WORLD  109 

a  mariner  who  has  doubled  the  promontory,  thou  wilt  find 
calm,  everything  stable,  and  a  waveless  bay."  ^ 

"  Seldom,  indeed,"  says  Lecky,^  "  has  such  active  and  un- 
relaxing  virtue  been  united  with  so  little  enthusiasm,  and 
been  cheered  by  so  little  illusion  of  success." 

We  meet  the  same  features  in  the  philosophy  of  this  period. 
The  movements  which  Zeller  embraces  under  the  title :  Pre- 
cursors of  Neo-Platonism,  in  the  last  volume  of  his  History  of 
Greek  Philosophy,  the  Neo-Pythagoreans,  the  later  Cynics, 
the  Essenes,  the  Judaeo-Greek  philosophy  of  Philo,  all  of 
them  have  their  origin  in  the  same  mood  of  life  and  show  the 
same  traits ;  they  preach  submission  and  resignation,  absten 
tion  from  the  world,  supported  by  asceticism,  a  return  to  the 
suprasensuous  world,  to  which  the  soul  really  belongs.  The 
life  in  the  body  they  regard  as  a  life  in  a  prison-house, 
death  as  the  emancipation  of  the  just.  This  last  offshoot  of 
the  old  trunk  of  philosophy,  Neo-Platonism,  has  shown  a  re- 
markable power  in  utilizing  the  results  of  all  previous  phil- 
osophical investigations,  and  has  constructed  a  system  of  the 
universe  based  upon  this  mood.  The  goal  of  the  philosophy 
of  Plotinus  is  a  purely  supranaturalistic  ethics.  By  freeing 
itself  from  the  sensuous  impulses  and  sensuous  knowledge, 
the  soul  is  enabled  wholly  to  give  up  its  temporal-personal 
self-consciousness,  and  to  raise  itself  into  communion  with 
the  divine  by  means  of  ecstasy.  Thus  it  returns  to  its  origin 
and  fulfills  its  highest  mission.  It  is  said  that  Plotinus  re- 
fused to  allow  a  painting  to  be  made  of  himself,  because  he 
was  ashamed  of  his  body.  —  Thus  philosophy  came  to  be 
exactly  what  Socrates   once  called  it:  the  study  of  death 

(fxeXeTTj  Oavdrov). 

It  would,  of  course,  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  philo- 
sophical movement  reflected  the  general  conception  of  the 
times.  In  the  section  of  his  work  which  deals  with  the  rela- 
tion of  philosophy  to  the  age,  Friedlander  has  brought  to- 

1  XII.  22.  *  History  of  European  Morals,  I.,  253. 


110 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


gether  a  mass  of  evidence  to  show  that  philosophy  was  not 
without  its  enemies  and  despisers.    Educated  and  uneducated 
people  derided  the  philosophers  as  ridiculous  fools,  who  with 
their  breadless  art  acquired  neither  advancement  nor  reputa- 
tion, neither  money  nor  favor ;  they  at  the  same  time  hated 
them  as  men  who  by  their  words  and  their  mode  of  life  dis- 
dained and  censured  their  fellows  and  their  aspirations.     By 
many  the  occupation  with  philosophy  was  regarded  as  at 
least  improper  for  the  statesman ;  at  times  it  was  even  con- 
sidered dangerous  to  the  state ;  during  the  first  century  the 
philosophers  were   twice  driven  from   Rome.     The  relation 
of  a  philosophy  to  its  age  by  no  means  consists  in  expressing 
that  which  its  age  possesses,  but  rather  in  expressing  what 
it  lacks;   it  shows  what  the  most  reflective  and   the  most 
sensitive  among  those  living  at  the   time  desire  and  strive 
after ;  their  ideal  contains  the  features  of  the  present,  but  only 
as  a  negative  picture.     But  in  so  far  as  all  historical  progress 
has  its  origin  in  the  feeling  of  want  or  discomfort,  we  may 
also  say :  The  philosophers  are  diviners  of  the  future ;  we  can 
learn  from  them  not  what  is  and  what  is  esteemed,  but  what 
is  to  come.     In  this  sense  we  may  regard   the  philosophy 
of  the  Empire  as  a  sign  that  a  radical  change  is  about  to  take 
place  in  the  inner  life  of  the  ancient  peoples ;  their  deepest 
longing  is  no  longer  for  the  development  and  perfection  of 
the  natural  life ;  exhausted  by  the  pleasures  and  sufferings  of 
this  world,  they  are  beginning  to  crave  with  secret  yearnings 
for  deliverance. 

4.  By  offering  them  deliverance  and,  besides,  an  eternal 
life  in  transraundane,  suprasensuous  glory,  Christianity  satis- 
fied the  most  secret  and  deepest  yearnings  of  the  age.  That 
which  the  philosophers  brought  particularly  to  the  educated 
and  high-born,  was  promised  by  Christianity  to  the  poor  and 
wretched,  the  weary  and  heavy-laden :  deliverance  from  the 
bondage  of  earthly  fear  and  desire,  in  which  the  soul  is  held  by 
the  world  and  outward  show.     The  former  promised  deliver- 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF   THE   OLD   WORLD 


111 


ance  as  the  fruit  of  knowledge,  the  latter  as  the  effect  of 
grace;  and  in  so  far  the  disposition  of  the  philosopher  is 
radically  different  from  that  of  the  Christian,  the  old  pride 
of  conscious  virtue  or  self-righteousness  still  clings  to  the 
former.  But  they  almost  entirely  agree  in  their  judgment  of 
life  and  man. 

Christianity  was  not  the  only  religion  from  the  Orient 
which  gained  adherents  at  this  time.  The  Egyptian,  Syrian, 
and  Persian  gods  and  forms  of  worship  also  made  devout 
and  grateful  converts  in  the  Roman  Empire ;  likewise  Juda- 
ism, the  old  and  the  new,  as  which  Christianity  was  first 
regarded.  Friedlander^  accounts  for  the  reception  of  the 
foreign  cults  by  the  thorough  mixture  of  the  nations ;  poly- 
theism, he  finds,  does  not  really  exclude  the  gods  of  the  newly 
incorporated  peoples,  but  leaves  to  them  their  special  spheres 
of  action;  the  Romans  in  foreign  lands  unhesitatingly  ap- 
pealed to  the  native  gods.  The  mixture  of  nations  was  un- 
doubtedly the  cause  of  the  mixture  of  religions;  but  why  did 
these  Oriental  cults,  the  worship  of  the  Syrian  Baal  and 
Astarte,  the  Egyptian  Isis  and  Osiris,  the  Persian  Mithras, 
prove  so  attractive  to  the  people  of  the  Empire  ?  For,  as 
J.  Burckhardt  properly  insists  in  his  beautiful  work  on  the 
Age  of  Constantine  the  Great  ^ :  "  The  later  Romans  in  their 
truly  universal  superstition  conformed  to  the  local  worship  in 
Gaul  as  well  as  everywhere  else  ;  but  no  Gallic  god  was  trans- 
ferred to  Italy  or  Greece  ;  "  whereas  the  Oriental  cults  really 
took  root  in  Greece  and  Rome.  The  reason  can  surely  be 
found  only  in  what  Burckhardt  finds  it :  owing  to  their  inner 
cliaracteristics  the  Oriental  religions  met  a  need  of  the  Roman 
world  which  was  no  longer  satisfied  by  the  old  native  religion. 
Now,  these  cults  are  peculiar,  in  that  the  doctrine  of  a  life 
after  death  is  essential  to  them  all.  After  doing  severe 
penance  and  mortifying  himself,  the  believer  is  promised  ex- 
piation and  purification,  in  virtue  of  which  he  will  escape 

1  in..  4.  «  Section  V. 


112 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  rillLOSOPHY 


CHRISTIANIZATION   OF   THE   OLD   WORLD 


113 


the  punishments  awaiting  the  impenitent  offender  in  the 
hereafter.  Human  sacrifices  and  self-mutilation  are  customary 
in  many  of  these  cults.  The  thought  of  a  life  after  death 
was  rather  foreign  to  the  classical  age :  this  earthly  life  was 
the  true  life,  the  life  after  death  a  shadow  of  the  present  life. 
The  only  concern  which  men  felt  for  the  hereafter  was  to 
preserve  a  good  reputation  among  the  living.^  During  the 
empire  a  change  gradually  took  place  ;  the  hereafter  assumed 
greater  and  greater  importance  at  the  expense  of  this  world. 
And  now  the  old  gods  would  no  longer  suffice.  Not  only  to 
the  men  of  the  classic  age,  but  to  their  gods  also,  the  here- 
after was  an  unfamiliar  thought ;  they  were  the  gods  of  the 
living,  not  of  the  dead ;  they  were  the  givers  and  preservers 
of  earthly  gifts ;  health  and  beauty,  victory  and  wealth,  they 
bestowed  upon  their  favorites,  and  were  honored  with  cheerful 
festivals  in  return.  With  the  dead  they  had  nothing  to  do. 
The  age  showed  its  solicitude  for  the  future  life  by  seeking 
new  gods  and  forms  of  worship,  and  found  them  in  the  old 

religions  of  the  East. 

6.  The  Christian  religion  gained  the  victory  over  her 
rivals.  What  made  her  victorious  ?  We  are  surely  justi- 
fied in  believing :  her  inner  worth.  Perhaps  it  was,  first  of 
all,  the  sensuous-suprasensuous  conviction  of  the  immediate 
return  of  the  Lord  to  judge  the  earth  and  to  establish  the 
kingdom  of  glory,  which  gave  the  members  of  the  church 
the  strength  to  despise  the  world  and  imbued  their  preach- 
ing of  the  kingdom  with  such  overpowering  force.  More- 
over, the  esprit  de  corps  was  for  this  very  reason  much 
stronger  among  the  professors  of  Christianity  than  among 
the  other  religious  communities;  they  looked  upon  them- 
selves, not  without  a  feeling  of  pride,  as  a  community  of 
saints  chosen  from  the  world,  as  the  members  of  the  kingdom 
of  glory,  whose  sojourn  here  in  the  flesh  was  a  mere  accident. 
This   separation  from    the   world   was    encouraged  by   the 

1  Friedlander,  III.,  5. 


jealous  exclusiveness  of  their  worship,  a  heritage  of  Jewish 
monotheism,  which  branded  all  adoration  of  other  gods  as 
of  idolatry.  The  power  of  a  religion  to  gain  adherents  is  in 
inverse  proportion  to  its  tendency  to  mix  with  others.  Then, 
again,  there  was  more  of  the  self-sacrificing  devotion  of  the 
founder  in  the  Christian  communities  than  among  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  other  cults,  although  all  of  them  demanded 
sacrifices,  and  none  was  without  its  martyrs.  But  none  of 
them  had  such  a  host  of  martyrs  as  Christianity.  It  is  a 
wonderful  fact,  one  that  does  honor  to  human  nature,  that 
no  sermon  makes  a  deeper  impression  upon  it  than  that 
preached  from  a  cross.  Finally,  the  Christian  belief  also 
satisfied  the  reason  in  a  certain  sense ;  the  rational  mono- 
theism of  the  new  religion,  which  worshipped  God  as  a 
spirit,  was  more  acceptable  than  the  myths  of  the  old  popular 
religions,  which  were  no  longer  believed,  or  than  many  of 
the  absurd  superstitions  of  the  East. 

6.  Perhaps  the  conversion  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  to 
Christianity  also  admits  of  a  further  explanation.  We  may 
regard  the  conversion  of  a  people  to  a  religion  of  redemption 
as  the  final  stage  in  the  development  of  its  entire  spiritual 
life.  I  venture  merely  to  suggest  this  view,  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  the  evolution  of  a  popular  life,  similar 
to  that  which  we  have  of  the  development  of  an  individual 
life,  is  of  course  utterly  out  of  the  question.  Let  us  say,  then, 
that  the  religion  of  redemption  is  the  product  of  a  nation's 
senility :  it  produces  mythology  and  the  tales  of  heroes  in 
its  youth,  philosophy  and  science  in  its  manhood,  a  philo- 
sophy of  consolation  and  a  religion  of  redemption  in  its  old 
age.  We  might  compare  the  stages  of  development  in  the 
world  of  ideas  with  parallel  stages  of  development  in  the 
practical  world:  youth  yearns  for  action  in  the  chase  and 
war ;  manhood  turns  to  work  and  acquisition,  to  commerce 
and  industry  ;  old  age  lays  aside  its  tasks,  and  feeds  on  the 

products  of  its  former  achievements ;  it  yearns  for  rest,  and 

8 


li: 


114 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY 


CHRISTIANIZATION  OF   THE   OLD   WORLD 


115 


withdraws  from  the  present,  it  lives  in  the  memory  of  the 
past  and  in  the  thought  of  the  hereafter.  The  new  religion, 
therefore,  offers  itself  as  a  substitute  for  poetry  and  science, 
for  work  and  conflict,  hopefully  transfiguring  the  evening 
of  life  as  with  a  soft  twilight. 

The  same  development  of  the  great  Eastern  branch  of  the 
Aryan  stock  also  seems  to  favor  such  a  view  of  the  conver- 
sion of  the  old  nations  to  Christianity.     The  Hindoos,  too, 
had  once  started  out,  under  the  protection  of  kindred  martial 
gods,  upon  a  career  of  conquest  and  victory,  and  had  battled 
for  their  habitations   on   the   banks  of  the   Indus  and  the 
Ganges.     They,  too,  had  reached  a  high  stage  of  mental  and 
economic  evolution.     And    among   them   also,  at    last,  the 
desire  for  civilization  changed  into  religiosity.     Brahmanism, 
and  still  more  Buddhism,  both  of  them  products  of  immanent 
development,  are  to  the  Orientals  what  Christianity  was  in 
the  Graeco-Roman  world.     The  two  conceptions  of  life  show 
such  an    astonishing  similarity  in  their    details,  that  the 
belief  in  the  derivation  of  Christianity  from  Indian  sources 
constantly   forces  itself   upon   us.       The   commands   of  the 
Dhammapadam,   a  collection  of    wise   Buddhistic  sayings,^ 
often  exactly  agree,  in  meaning   and  in  language,  with  the 
collection  of  sayings  of  the  so-called  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
To  exterminate  the  desires,  to  suffer   wrong  without  anger 
and  revenge,  to  be  pure  in  heart  and  peaceful  in  disposition : 
these  are  the  commands  which  are  given  to  the  believers  in 
the  former  case  as  well  as  in  the  latter.    The  forms  of  life, 

1  For  a  German  translation  see  W.  Weber's  Hindoo  Studies  {Indische  Studien), 
I  29-86  The  able  work  of  H.  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  his  Life,  his  Doctrine,  his 
Order  {Buddha,  sein  Leben,  seine  Lehre,  seine  Gemeinde)  [English  translation 
London  1882]  (2  ed.,  1890)  gives  the  historical  basis  for  the  interpretation  and 
understanding  of  these  sayings.  In  the  third  volume  of  Dnncker's  Ilistorr,  of 
Anfinuitu  we  have  an  attempt  to  trace  the  development  of  the  Hindoo  popular 
spirit  in  which  the  contrast  between  a  stage  of  civilization  and  a  religious  stage 
of  development  is  very  marked.     [See  the  excellent  little  work  of  Paul  Cams, 

The  Gospel  of  Buddha  and  his  Table  of  Reference,  on  pp.  231-241 ;  alBO  the 

bibliography  given  by  him  on  pages  241-242.  —  Tr.] 


too,  in  which  these  demands  are  sought  to  be  realized  show 
the  most  remarkable  similarity;  here  as  well  as  there  we 
find  monasteries  and  monks,  with  the  three  vows  of  poverty, 
chastity,  and  humility  or  obedience. 

There  are,  of  course,  also  radical  differences  between  Budd- 
hism and  Christianity,  differences  conditioned  by  the  lives  of 
the  two  founders.  In  Buddha,  the  Enlightened  One,  there 
is  no  passion,  we  might  almost  say,  no  personal  will ;  a 
gentle  teaclier,  he  travels  from  place  to  place,  communicating 
the  truth  discovered  by  him  that  life  is  suffering,  and  that 
the  way  to  salvation  passes  through  the  knowledge  of  the 
essence  of  existence.  Tlie  life  of  Jesus  is  a  struggle  with 
the  world  and  with  evil,  which  confronts  him  in  personal 
form  in  Satan.  Buddha's  death  is  the  quiet  extinction  of 
a  flame,  the  death  of  Jesus  is  the  victorious  death  of  a 
hero.  The  words  of  Jesus  are  flames  which  arouse  passions, 
the  preaching  of  Buddha  is  monotonous  repetition ;  we  might 
almost  say,  it  has  a  hypnotizing  effect.  Schopenhauer's 
claim  that  Christianity  is  in  every  respect  inferior  to  Budd- 
hism, can  be  explained  only  by  his  a  priori  aversion  to 
Christianity,  or  rather  to  the  church  and  theology  ;  for  other- 
wise he  could  not  have  failed  to  see  how  much  greater  is  the 
value  of  Christianity,  considered  from  the  purely  human  and 
poetical  standpoint,  than  that  of  Buddliism.  The  more 
highly  developed  the  will-to-live  is  in  the  Occident,  the 
greater  is  at  least  the  dramatic  interest  in  its  conversion. 
But  in  so  far  as  the  above-mentioned  differences  are  differ- 
ent expressions  of  the  original  or  acquired  character  of 
the  nations,  we  may  say  :  Christianity  and  Buddhism  are 
homologous  processes  of  development. 


i 


THE  MEDIEVAL  CONCEPTION 


IIT 


CHAPTER  IV 

« 

THE  MIDDLE  AGES  AND  THEIR  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFEi 

1    The  Middle  Ages  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  have  been  abso- 
lutely ruled  by  the  Christian  conception  of  life.    The  church 
represents  the  framework  in  which  their  entire  spiritual  life 
was  embraced.    The  church  doctrine  governed  knowledge ;  the 
vita  religiosa,  the  monastic  life,  which  rests  upon  the  principle 
of  world-estrangement  and  self-denial,  was  unreservedly  ac- 
cepted  as  the  ideal  of  conduct.    Indeed,  poverty,  chastitjs 
and  obedience,  the  three  monastic  vows,  meant  nothing  but 
the  extermination  of  the  three  strongest  impulses  of  the 
natural  man :  the  impulses  which  aim  at  possession,  family, 
reputation   and  power.     In  reality,  the   entire  clergy  wore 
amenable  to  the  rules  of  the  vita  ,..%io«a;    their  mission 
consisted  in  exemplifying  to  the  people  the  Christian  life ; 
but  the  church  never  wholly  succeeded  in  imposing  monachism 
upon  the  clergy  living  outside  of  the  monasteries ;  celibacy 
alone  was  gradually  enforced. 

Nevertheless,  it  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  mediaeval 
life  was  really  the  same  in  character  as  the  life  of  the  old 
Christian  communities  in  the  Graeco-Roman  world.  If  there 
is  any  truth  whatever  in  the  view  suggested  above,  concerning 
the  nature  of  the  religion  of  redemption,  this  cannot  hav^  been 
the  case  The  Middle  Ages  do  not  represent  the  senility  ot 
the  Germanic  nations,  but,  if  we  may  be  allowed  to  continue 
our  comparison  of  a  collective  life  with  an  individual  life, 
their  school-days ;  they  went  to  school  to  antiquity,  learnmg 

1  r^ee  references  in  notes  on  pp.  35  and  65.  —  Tr.] 


language  and  science,  philosophy  and  religion,  useful  and 
beautiful  arts.  Now,  these  youthful  nations  could  no  more 
be  converted,  in  the  real  sense  of  the  term,  than  a  schoolboy 
can  be  converted.  He  alone  can  be  converted  who  has  lived, 
and  now  discovers  that  life  does  not  keep  what  it  seemed  to 
promise.  The  old  nations  were  converted,  they  made  this 
discovery  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  brilliant  career  of  civili- 
zation; after  having  failed  to  find  happiness  by  satisfying 
their  desires,  they  now  sought  peace  through  deliverance 
from  desire.  When  the  Germans  became  Christians,  they 
had  hardly  entered  upon  the  path  of  civilization ;  they  could 
not  receive  the  baptism  with  the  same  feelings  as  the 
ancients. 

Of  this  the  history  of  their  Christianization  does  not  leave  us 
in  doubt.  In  the  old  world  the  conversion  to  Christianity  was 
absolutely  spontaneous  and  from  within.  Christianity  had 
come  to  the  ancients,  not  with  the  force  of  arms,  like  Islam 
later  on,  nor  with  superior  culture  and  science ;  it  possessed 
none  of  these  things,  nay,  the  lack  of  them  constituted  one  of 
its  essential  traits.  It  triumphed  not  by  the  methods  of  pol- 
itics, but  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  political  powers.  To  be 
sure,  after  its  establishment,  after  it  became  a  power,  this  state 
of  affairs  soon  changed ;  the  politicians,  who  make  everything 
subserve  their  ends,  also  utilized  Christianity,  the  state  itself 
became  Christian,  or  Christianity  was  organized  into  a  state, 
and  the  last  remains  of  paganism  were  finally  eradicated  by 
the  government.  All  this,  of  course,  could  not  fail  to  in- 
fluence the  inner  essence  of  Christianity;  ever  since  the 
existence  of  Christian  emperors,  which  Tertullian  had  de- 
clared to  be  a  contradiction  in  terms,^  the  church  could  no 
longer  assume  the  harsh  opposition  to  the  "  world  "  which 
the  primitive  communities  assumed;  a  kind  of  compromise 
was  made  between  Christianity  and  the  world :  it  assimilated 
BO  much  of  the  world  as  was  needed,  not  to  overcome  but  to 

1  ApoL,  c.  21. 


118  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

rule  the  world.  In  this  way  the  church  developed  into  a  new 
world-power  during  the  latter  days  of  antiquity,  not,  however, 
without  having  first  created  a  kind  of  refuge  in  the  mon- 
asteries  for  an  unworldly  or  extra- worldly  Christianity ;  and 
the  high  estimate  which  the  church  places  upon  the  monastic 
life  shows  that  she  is  still  conscious  of  the  true  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  world. 

The   conversion  of  the  Germanic  peoples  was   a  process 
entirely  different  from  the   original   conversion  of  the   old 
nations  to  Christianity  ;  they  were,  we  might  say,  not  really 
converted  to  Christianity,  hut  to  the  church.    Politics  and 
coercion  always  played  a  part  in  the  reception  of  baptism, 
and  often  cast  the  deciding  vote.    The  Germanic  tribes,  from 
whom  the   German  people  sprang,  were   all  of  them  com- 
pelled  by  the  force  of  arms  to  join  Christianity  or  rather  the 
political-ecclesiastical  system  of  the  Frankish  Empire.     The 
history  of  the  wars  and  administration  of  Charlemagne  tells 
bloody  tales  of  the  "conversion"  of  the  Saxons.     He  that 
refuses  baptism,  so  it  is  decreed  in  the  capitulare  of  Fader- 
born  (785),  or  wantonly  eats  meat  during  Lent,  or  burns  a 
corpse  after  the  custom  of  the  heathens,  shall  die.    Whoever 
cannot  recite  the   Lord's  prayer  or  the   creed,  so  a  later 
capitulare  decrees,  shall  be  punished  with  blows  or  by  fast- 
ing,  whether  it  be  a  man  or  a  woman. 

2    Just  as  the  conversion  of  the  Germans  was  different 
from  that  of  the  ancients,  so  their  conceptions  and  mode  of 
life  differed  from  those  of  primitive  Christianity.     The  Middle 
Ages  were  not  tired  of  the  world  and  sated  with  life,  but  full 
of  energy  and  the  desire  to  achieve  great  deeds.     Individuals 
were  not  wanting  in  whom  the  true  Christian  mood  asserted 
itself;  in  many  a  mediaeval  church  hymn  the  feeling  of  world- 
weariness  and  the  yearning  for  deliverance  from  this  misery 
and  for  the  heavenly  fatherland  is  pathetically  expressed. 
But  that  was  not  the  prevailing  mood.     By  the  side  of  the 
church  poetry  flourished  the  popular  epic  or  heroic  poem ; 


THE  MEDIEVAL  CONCEPTION 


119 


coming  nearer  to  the  hearts  of  the  people,  it  was  transmitted 
by  word  of  mouth  throughout  the  entire  Middle  Ages.  It  is 
not  at  all  Christian  in  character.  The  virtue  most  admired 
is  not  resignation  and  patience,  but  ferocious  courage ;  the 
warlike  hero  is  the  ideal  of  the  Nihelungenlied  no  less  than 
of  the  Iliad.  To  love  your  enemies  and  to  suffer  wrong  was 
as  foreign  to  the  German  warriors  as  to  the  heroes  in  Homer. 
The  true  man  was  a  strong  and  true  friend  to  his  friends,  and 
an  awful  enemy  to  his  enemies.  The  old  Saxon  poem  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  (the  Eeliand)  makes  Christ  a  mighty  lord  and 
the  disciples  his  retainers ;  the  transformation  shows  how 
impossible  it  was  for  the  Saxons  to  imagine  the  real  Jesus 
and  his  followers.  The  lyric  poetry  is  as  little  Christian  in 
character  as  the  epic.  It  sings  of  the  pleasures  and  sorrows 
of  love,  the  joys  of  spring  and  the  love  of  the  world. 

Such  poetry  springs  directly  from  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  true  mirror  of  their  real  life. 
Measured  by  the  command  of  the  Gospels  to  despise  the 
world  and  its  pleasures,  the  life  of  the  Germanic  nations 
during  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  a  Christian  life.  The  great 
business  of  the  men  was  war ;  martial  games  and  the  chase 
occupied  the  leisure  of  the  nobles.  The  pleasures  of  the  table 
and  society  were  also  prized,  and  the  relations  of  the  sexes 
were  made  the  subject  of  an  art  and  a  study,  all  of  which  is 
elaborately  set  forth  in  Weinhold's  Buch  iiber  die  deutschen 
Frauen  im  Mittelalter, 

3.  Nor  did  the  actual  life  of  the  clergy,  as  has  frequently 
been  pointed  out,  always  wholly  conform  to  its  ascetic  ideal. 
The  Fope,  who,  in  remembrance  of  the  command  of  Christ, 
called  himself  the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  was  in 
reality  the  lord  of  the  world ;  the  bishops  were  princes  and 
rulers,  many  among  them  caring  more  for  their  lands  and 
people,  for  power  and  wealth,  than  for  the  salvation  of  souls. 
The  cloisters,  in  which  the  spirit  of  unworldliness  (  Weltflucht, 
world-flight)   and   asceticism  was   supposed  to  thrive,  were 


120  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

centres  of  civilization,  and  occasionally  also  the  scenes  of 
luxurious   and   unholy   enjoyment.       The   Benedictines   and 
Cistercians  carried  handicrafts  and  arts,  horticulture  and  agri- 
culture, wherever  they  went.     Even  the  treasures  of  heathen 
science'  and  literature  sought  refuge  in  the  monasteries,  and 
were  preserved  by  them  for  posterity,  a  service  for  which  they 
have  often  been  extolled.     The  praise  is  well  deserved,  but  it 
is  strange,  nevertheless,  that  the  brotherhoods  of  Christian 
asceticism  should  have  sought  and  found  praise  not  only  for 
transcribing  the  verses  of  Ovid  and  Horace,  the  writings  of 
Aristotle  and  Lucretius,  but  also  for  studying,  explaining, 
imitating,  and   so  constantly  keeping  them  alive.     And  no 
less  strange  seem  to  us,  looked  at  from  this  point  of  view, 
those  military  orders  the  members  of  which,  as  the  soldiers 
of  Christ,  wore  the  sword  and  the  cross,  the  coat  of   mail 
and  the  cassock,  and  inflicted  as  well  as  bound  up  wounds 

in  his  service. 

The  intellectual  life  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  was  directly 
dominated  by  the  church,  also  differed  from  that  of  primitive 
Christianity.     A  strong,  youthful  craving  for  knowledge  was 
unmistakable ;  the  age  still  distrusted  its  own  powers,  and 
drew  upon  others  for  its  science,  but  it  took  it  wherever  it 
found  it ;  from  the  books  of  the  heathens,  Jews,  and  Saracens, 
the  scholars  of  the  mediaeval  universities  derived  their  knowl- 
edge of  things.    Scholastic  theology  itself  is  a  first  modest 
att°empt  to  rationalize  the  sacred  teachings.     The  saying  of 
Anselm  :  "  I  believe  in  order  that  I  may  understand,"  is  char- 
acteristic of  mediaeval  theology ;  the  latter  does  not  aim  to 
create  a  new  truth,  -  we  have  the  truth ;  but  it  desires  to  ap- 
propriate, and,  as  it  were,  to  master  by  the  natural  reason  the 
truth  which  was  originally  accepted  on  faith.     That  was  the 
hi<^h  goal  of  the  intellectual  strivings  of  the  Middle  Ages  —  a 
goal,  however,  which  was  found  to  be  more  and  more  unattain- 
able  as  the  work  progressed.     We  cannot  say  that  this  aim  was 
in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  primitive  Christianity  ;  Paul,  at 


THE   MEDIEVAL   CONCEPTION 


121 


least,  in  whom  the  "  foolish  preaching  of  the  cross"  was  first 
confronted  with  Greek  wisdom,  does  not  dream  of  a  com- 
promise between  the  two,  or  of  rendering  the  truth  of  salva- 
tion intelligible  to  the  natural  reason ;  Tertullian  with  his  / 
believe  because  it  is  absurd,  evidently  comes  nearer  to  his  way 
of  looking  at  things  than  Anselm.  The  desire  to  comprehend 
the  faith  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  first  beginning  of  the 
desire  to  be  emancipated  from  it,  to  rise  above  it.  So  Luther 
felt  about  the  matter ;  he  hated  scholastic  theology  and 
philosophy,  because  they  mingled  with  the  Christian  faith 
the  heathen  wisdom  of  Aristotle ;  he  desired  to  restore  the 
former  in  its  purity. 

Hence  mediaeval  Christianity  was  not  the  same  as  primitive 
Christianity.  Not  only  were  the  Germans  Christianized,  but 
Christianity  was  also  Germanized;  it  appropriated  the  nat- 
ural desire  for  civilization  of  the  youthful  nations,  and  was 
thoroughly  imbued  with  their  spirit.  Moreover,  it  had,  as  has 
already  been  pointed  out,  gradually  assumed  a  more  positive 
relation  to  the  world  and  its  aims,  even  during  antiquity, 
and  was  thus  prepared  for  the  task  of  bringing  to  the  new 
nations  the  elements  of  the  old  civilization  along  with  the 
new  faith. 

4.  What  shall  we  say  of  this  mixture  of  Christianity  and 
the  world  ?  The  sects  which  separated  from  the  triumphant 
church  have  always  regarded  it  as  a  corruption  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  they  were  unable  to  recognize  in  a  state  church  the 
community  of  saints  who  had  gathered  around  the  word 
of  the  cross  in  the  primitive  times.  The  peculiar  essence 
and  strength  of  Christianity  seemed  to  them  to  have  been 
lost  when  the  church  divided  with  the  state  the  power  over  the 
woi'ld,  either  ruling  it,  as  the  Catholic  church  always  aimed 
to  do,  or  being  ruled  by  it,  as  in  the  case  of  Protestantism. 

From  the  standpoint  of  primitive  Christianity  it  would  be 
hard  to  contradict  this  view.  Christianity  was  originally  a 
battle   with   the   world.       A   Christianity  without  battle,   a 


122 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


Christianity  recognized  by  the  world,  approved  and  author- 
ized by  the  state,  is  no  longer  the  same  thing ;  or  if  all  men 
had  become  Christians,  there  would  no  longer  be  any  world 
or  state;  the  times  would  be  fulfilled,  history  closed.  —  It  is 
also  certain  that  a  type  of  character  has  been  produced  by 
the  mixture  of  Christian  forms  and  modes  of  speech  with 
worldly  manners,  which  is  one  of  the  most  repulsive  deform- 
ities ever  suffered  by  the  nature  of  man ;  it  is  called  Pfaffen- 
turn:  haughtiness  and  greed  for  power  assuming  the  form 
of  Christian  humility  ;  harshness  and  presumption,  disguised 
as  love  and  care  for  the  soul  of  the  brother.  The  ancient 
world  was  unfamiliar  with  this  type,  but  it  is  as  old  as  the 
church,  and  is  found,  moreover,  not  only  among  the  servants 
of  the  church,  but  also  among  the  servants  of  the  state  and 
science,  indeed  among  all  who  have  spiritual  or  worldly 
power.  If  we  look  upon  the  priests  as  the  representatives  of 
the  church,  we  can  hardly  regard  the  church  as  anything  but  a 
great  degeneration.^ 

1  As  an  attempt  to  write  a  history  of  non-ecclesiastical  Christianity,  that  is,  the 
true  evangelical  Christianity,  a  work  hy  L.  Keller,  The  Reformation  and  the  Older 
Reform- Parties  (Die  Reformation  und  die  alteren  Reformparteien),  1 885,  is  of  interest. 
That  the  author  has  succeeded  in  proving  an  uninterrupted,  historical  connection 
in  the  "evangelical  communities"  from  the  time  when  Christianity  became  a 
state  religion  under  Constantine,  down  to  the  Reformation  and  beyond  it  to  our 
times,  the  expert  may  well  doubt.     We  must  not,  however,  forget  that  not  every- 
thing that  has  happened  is  to  be  found  in  the  fragmentary  records  which  have 
come  down  to  us.  —  A  passionate  protest  is  raised  against  state  Christianity  from 
the  standpoint  of  primitive  Christianity  by  tlie  Dane,  Soeren  Kierkegaard,  in  his 
later  writings.     In  the  intensely  sarcastic  articles  published  by  him  in  the  year 
1 855,  in  a  number  of  journals,  and  entitled  "Moment"  (German  translation  in  • 
Soeren  Kierkegaard,  Attack  upon  Christianity/,  edited  by  A.  Dorner  and  Chr. 
Schremph,  1896),  he  again  and  again  contrasts  the  original  preachers  of  Chris- 
tianity, who  gave  up  their  lives  for  it,  with  the  thousands  of  "witnesses  of  the 
truth,"  employed  by  the  royal  Danish  government,  who  by  preaching  the  passion 
of  Christ  win  positions,  decorations,  silver  table-services,  gilded  reclining  chairs, 
and  other  glories.    The  true  Christian  is  even  to  this  day  recognized  by  the 
Cross  ;  not  by  the  gold  or  silver  cross  which  is  worn  on  a  colored  ribbon  around 
the  neck  or  upon  the  bosom  and  marks  its  wearer  as  a  knight  or  a  commander, 
but  by  the  Cross  which  is  imposed  as  a  martyrdom  and  a  disgrace  by  the  self- 
appointed  and  official  representatives  of  the  world  upon  those  who  despise  the 
world  for  Christ's  sake.     Indeed,  it  is  perhaps  the  strangest  irony  of  history 
that  the  cross,  or,  translating  the   Roman   custom  into   modern  language,  the 


THE  MEDIEVAL  CONCEPTION 


123 


The  judgment  of  history,  however,  can  and  must  be  a  dif- 
ferent one.     In  order  to  become  the  powerful  leaven  which  it 
afterward  became,  in  order  to  be  not  merely  the  euthanasia 
of  the  old  peoples,  but  a  life-principle  of  the  new  society  of 
nations  now  appearing  upon  the  theatre  of  the  world,  Chris- 
tianity had  to  assume  a  positive  relation  to  the  world,  it  had 
to  be  organized  into  the  strong  and  permanent  form  of  the 
church,  after  the  manner  of  a  world-kingdom.    It  is,  of  course, 
an  indisputable  fact  that  it  was  thereby  changed,  but  it  is  no 
less  certain  that  this  was  the  only  condition  under  which  it 
could  have  hoped  to  influence  the  future  historical  life  of  the 
modern  nations.     It  is  not  probable  that  the  old  Christian 
communities  would  have  succeeded  in  converting  and  educat- 
ino-  the  warlike   Germanic  tribes.     The  latter  bowed   down 
before   the  brilliant  retinue  of  Christ  in  the  church;  it  is 
more  than  doubtful  whether  they  would   have  bowed  down 
before  the  followers  by  whom  Jesus  himself  was  surrounded 
on  earth.     Now,  unless  we  deny  that  very  valuable  elements 
have  been  added  to  the  life  of  these  nations  by  the  church,  we 
cannot  deny  that  the  transformation  of  Cliristianity  into  the 
church  was  an  historical  necessity.     But  there  is  no  danger 
that   an  impartial   observer   will   deny   such   a   proposition, 
unless,   of   course,  he   is   prepared   to   reject   not   only   the 
church,  but  the  Middle  Ages  themselves  as  one  great  mis- 
take.   A  fanatical  prophet  of  the  Renaissance  or  a  passionate 
follower  of  the  Reformation  might  perhaps  have  been  ready 
to  do  such  a  thing ;  at  present  no  one  will  refuse  to  admit  that 
the  spiritual-moral  life  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  full  of  peculiar 
beauty.    And  this  beauty  universally  depends  upon  the  eccles- 
iastical-Christian character  of  their  thoughts  and  feelings.     1 
call  to  mind  the  tender,  high-minded  sense  of  justice,  which, 

gibbet,  should  be  worn  as  a  mark  of  honor.  —A  book  of  Leo  Tolstoi,  My  Religion, 
(i':nglish  translation.  New  York,  1899)  expresses  similar  views  with  respect  to 
the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church.  The  commentary 
from  the  inner  life  of  the  poet  is  furnished  by  his  wonderful  Popular  Stories 
(Reclam  Library). 


124 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


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125 


grafted  upon  the  military  virtues  of  the  Germanic  nations,  pro- 
duced such  a  peculiar  type  of  moral  nobility  in  their  knight- 
hood ;  and  the  merciful  treatment  of  the  poor  and  wretched,  a 
form  of  beneficence  which,  embodied  in  thousands  of  charit- 
able institutions,  has   come  down  to   us,  and   to  this   day 
alleviates  suffering   and   dries   tears.     I   also  call   to  mind 
their  spiritualized  relations  to  women,  and  their  aversion  to 
all  sexual  unchastity  —  although  the  latter  frequently  failed 
to  prevent  what  is  hardly  repulsive  to  the  natural  man,  and 
the  former  resulted  in  strange  aberrations  in  the  Minnedienst, 
yet  the  tenderness  and  rigor  of  the  Middle  Ages  contrast 
favorably   with   the   frivolousness   and   superficiality   of  the 
ancient  world.     I  call  to  mind  the   gradual   growth  of  the 
sentiment  that   slavery,   the   order   of  society  according   to 
the  natural  right  of  the  stronger,  does  not  agree  with  the 
commandment  of  love.     Although  the  church  did  not  abolish 
slavery,  but  permitted  it  to  exist,  like  other  worldly  institu- 
tions, as  an  indifferent  form  by  the  side  of  the  order  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  nay,  expressly  recognized  it  and  bought 
and  owned  slaves  herself,  she  was  neither  able  nor  willing 
to  hinder  the  spirit  of  the   Gospel,  wherever  it  triumphed, 
from  entirely  transforming  the  relation  between  masters  and 
slaves,  so  that  even  the  legal  form  ultimately  became  impos- 
sible.i     I  finally  call  to  mind  the  union  of  the  nations  in 
the  church,  which  somewhat  softened   the  national  antag- 
onisms ;  not  sufficiently,  it  is  true,  to  prevent  wars,  but  yet 
sufficiently  to  rob  them  of  the  character  of  wars  of  annihila- 
tion, in  which   these   antagonisms  result   according  to   the 
natural  order  of  events.     We  cannot  fail  to  recognize  in  all 
these  things  the  influence  of  organized  Christianity,  which 
had,  by  assimilating  elements  of  civilization  of  all   kinds, 
become  a  world-power.      And  the  glorious  development  of 

1  See  the  instructive  essay  by  F.  Overbeck  on  the  relation  of  the  old  church 
to  slavery  in  the  Roman  Empire  in  his  Studies  on  the  History  of  the  Ancient 
Church  {Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  alten  Kirche),  1875. 


mediaeval  art,  the  promising  beginnings  of  scientific  study, 
would  they  have  been  possible  without  the  church?  The 
"evangelical  communities,"  which  clung  to  the  old  concep- 
tion concerning  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  world,  have 
always  shown  indifference  or  aversion  to  art  and  science. 
Hence,  whoever  does  not  regard  all  civilization  as  a  mistake, 
or  the  participation  of  the  Germanic  nations  in  Christianity 
and  ancient  civilization  as  an  aberration  inconsistent  with 
their  own  immanent  development  —  a  view  which  is  possible, 
but  which,  of  course,  can  neither  be  proved  nor  refuted  — 
cannot  regard  the  mixture  of  Christianity  with  civilization  as 
a  mere  corruption  of  the  Gospel.^ 

1  The  above  exposition  agrees  in  its  historical  conception  as  well  as  in  its  criti- 
cal estimate  with  the  view  held  by  Harnack  in  his  History  of  the  Dogma.     A  few 
passages  from  the  first  volume  of  this  work,  which  gives  us  a  clear  idea  of  the 
growth  of  the  theoretical  side  of  ecclesiastical  Christianity,  may  suffice  to  show 
this.     "  By  surrounding  the  Gospel  with  a  protecting  shell,  Catholicism  at  the 
same  time  obscured  it.    It  preserved  the  Christian  religion  against  acute  Hel- 
lenization  (Gnosticism),  but  was  at  the  same  time   forced  to  permit  a  con- 
stantly increasing  measure   of  secularization.     In  the   interests  of  its  worldly 
mission,  it  did  not,  indeed,  exactly  destroy  the  awful  earnestness  of  the  religion, 
but  it  made  it  possible  for  those  who  were  less  serious  in  their  convictions  to  be 
regarded  as  Christians  and  to  regard  themselves  as  such,  by  permitting  a  less 
rigorous  ideal  of  life.    It  allowed  a  church  to  arise  which  was  no  longer  a  com- 
munity of  faith,  hope,  and  discipline,  but  a  political  community,  in  which  the 
Gospel  simply  constituted  one  of  many  important  elements.     It  invested   all 
forms  which  this  woridly  community  needed,  with  apostolic  —  that  is,  indirectly, 
with  divine  —  authority,  in    an    increasing    measure,    and    thereby    corrupted 
Christianity  and  obscured  and  rendered  difficult  the   knowledge   of  what  was 
Christian.    But  in  Catholicism  the  religion  for  the  first  time  received  a  systematic 
form.     In  Catholic  Christianity  the  formula  was  found  which  reconciled  faith 
and  science.     This  formula  satisfied  mankind  for  centuries,  and  the  blessings 
which  it  brought  continued  even  after  the  formula  itself  had  become  a  fetter." 
(I.,  275.)    Catholicism,  the  product  of  the  most  intimate  fusion  of  Christianity 
with  antiquity,  "conquered  the  world  and  became  the  foundation  for  a  new 
phase  of  history  in  the  Middle  Ages.     The  union  of  the  Christian  religion  with  a 
particular  historical  phase  of  knowledge  and  civilization  of  humanity,  may  be 
deplored  in  the  interests  of  the  Christian  religion,  which  was  thereby  made 
worldly,  and  in  the  interests  of  civilization,  which  was  thereby  impeded.    But 
complaints  here  become  presumptuous :  for  we  are  indebted  for  nothing  less  than 
everything  we  possess  and  prize  to  the  union  which  has  been  formed  between 
Christianity  and  antiquity,  a  union  in  which  neither  element  has  been  able  to 
overcome  the  other.    But  upon  the  conflicts  resulting  from  this  relation  our 
inner  and  spiritual  life  depends  to  this  day."     (p.  284.) 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


127 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

1.  The  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  marks  a  new  epoch  in 
the  life  of  the  Western  world ;  the  modern  era  becomes  the 
heir  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  line  of  demarkation  is  clear 
and  distinct ;  it  is  defined  by  two  powerful  spiritual  move- 
ments :  by  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  New 
forms  of  life  and  a  new  conception  of  the  universe  were  subse- 
quently developed.  The  state,  the  institution  of  the  modern 
times,  gradually  supplanted  the  church,  the  dominant  insti- 
tution of  the  Middle  Ages :  the  influence  of  the  latter  declined, 
the  individual  became  self-dependent  in  his  highest  relations, 
in  his  relation  to  God,  and  gradually  shook  off  the  guardian- 
ship of  the  church  in  matters  of  faith  and  salvation.  The  state, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  constantly  expanding.  It  deprived  the 
church  of  one  function  after  the  other :  the  school,  the  promo- 
tion of  science  and  art,  the  care  of  the  poor  and  weak,  legisla« 
tion  and  the  administration  of  justice,  a  field  which  had  been 
largely  appropriated  by  the  church.  Thus  the  state  became  a 
comprehensive  institution  for  the  advancement  of  civilization;  it 
was  firmly  planted  in  this  world  while  the  church  had  its  deep- 
est roots  in  the  transmundane  world.  —  There  is  a  reciprocal 
relation  between  the  development  of  the  world  of  institutions 
and  the  world  of  thoughts.  The  old  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse, based  upon  authorities  and  treating  of  heavenly  things, 
was  gradually  overthrown  by  the  new  philosophy,  which  had 
its  formal  basis  in  the  principle  of  rationalism,  the  principle  of 
free  investigation,  and  its  material  basis  in  the  new  cosmology 


and  natural  science,  which  deal  with  the  things  of  this 
world.  —  The  development  of  economic  and  social  life  formed 
the  starting-point  of  the  entire  transformation.  The  rapid, 
increase  and  expansion  of  international  commerce  beginning 
in  the  thirteenth  century  gave  rise  to  the  first  large  cities  ; 
the  new  society  became  more  and  more  intent  upon  con- 
quering the  earth  and  appropriating  its  wealth.  The  yearn- 
ing for  the  hereafter  was  stifled  in  the  mad  race  for  the  things 
of  this  world. 

Nevertheless,  from  the  standpoint  from  which  we  have 
just  been  considering  the  Middle  Ages,  we  shall  not  regard 
the  change  as  a  radical  one.  We  find  no  such  revolution  as 
followed  the  conversion  of  antiquity  to  Christianity.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  safer  to  say  that  the  flames  which  were 
smouldering  in  the  Middle  Ages  now  burst  forth ;  the  ten- 
dency to  civilization  which  already  existed  in  mediaeval  times, 
but  was  somewhat  impeded  and  obscured  by  the  shell  of  the 
supranaturalistic  religion  in  which  it  was  encased,  now  over- 
came  all  resistance.  The  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation 
represent  the  breaking  of  the  shell. 

2.  The  Renaissance}  It  means  the  rebirth  of  classical, 
that  is,  pre-Christian,  payan^  antiquity.  Pagan  antiquity 
had  perished  with  the  conversion  of  the  old  nations  to  Chris- 
tianity. Christianized  antiquity,  which  evolved  its  new  form 
in  the  church,  had  undertaken  the  education  of  the  new 
nations,  and  had  thus  far  guided  their  religious,  scientific, 
and  moral  life.  The  church  had  also  given  them  the  elements 
of  the  old  civilization,  above  all  philosophy  and  literature; 

1  [For  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  see  the  general  and  modern  histories 
of  philosophy,  the  works  mentioned  p.  35,  and  the  following:  Carriere,  Die 
philosophische  Weltanschauung  der  Reformationszeit ;  Voight,  Die  Wiederhelehun't 
des  classischen  Alterthums ;  Burckhardt,  Die  Cultur  der  Renaissance  (Engl, 
translation  by  Middleman) ;  Geiger,  Renaissance  und  Humanismus  in  Italien  und 
Deufschland ;  Symonds,  The  Renaissance  in  Ttaly ;  Peschel,  Geschichte  des  Zeif- 
altersder  Entdeckungen.  See  particularly  Knno  Fischer,  History  of  Modern  Phil- 
osophif,  vol.  I..  1,  chapters  V.  and  VI.  For  further  bibliography,  Ueberweg.  vol 
ni.,  §§  2-6 ;  Weber,  p.  10,  note  1,  p.  274,  note  6.  —  Tr.] 


i 


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ORIGINS  OF  MOKAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


129 


and  the  young  nations  had  derived  instruction  and  pleasure 
from  them ;   not  without  some  misgivings,  of  course  :   they 
knew  (the  church  told  them  so)  that  it  was  heathen  philoso- 
phy and  literature,  and  that   it  was  really  not   proper  for 
a  Christian  to  enjoy  them.      These  doubts  and  fears  were 
wholly  given  up  in  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.     The  age 
emancipated  itself  from   the  old   morose   school   and   task- 
master, the  discovery  was  made  that  antiquity  had  itself  been 
young  before  it  became  old  and  crabbed,  and  the  youthful 
heathen    antiquity   was   found  to  be  much   more   attractive 
and  grander  than  Christianized  antiquity.     All  minds  were 
filled  with  a  passionate  admiration  for  antiquity;   the  pro- 
ducts of  its  literature,  its  art,  its  philosophy,  were  ardently 
sought  after,  studied,  imitated,  and  thoroughly  assimilated. 
The  literary  and  artistic  productions  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
thrown  aside  with  the  contempt  with  which  the  schoolboy 
casts  aside  his  school  exercises  and  text-books  at  the  close 
of  his  course ;  everything  mediaeval  was  now  designated  as 
Gothic  barbarism.     The  age  was  anxious  to  think  and  to  feel, 
to  make  poetry  and  to  create,  to  live  and  to  enjoy,  like  the 
models  placed  before  it  by  classical  antiquity.    The  putting 
on  of  the  new  man  received  its  symbolical  expression  in  the 
rejection  of  the  old  and  in  the  adoption  of  new  Latinized  or 
Hellenized  names.  —  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the 
Renaissance  reached  its  highest  perfection  only  in  Italy.    From 
J.  Burckhardt's  Civilization  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy,  we  may 
glean  what  the  "  rebirth,"  the  birth  of  the  new  man,  signified. 
In  Italy  the  evolution  was  a  necessary  one.     On  this  side  of 
the  Alps  the  movement  was  not  spontaneous,  nor  did  it  take 
such  deep  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  ;  here  it  was  some- 
what imitative  in  character.     And  here  the  conflict  between 
the  old  and  the  new  culture  —  after  the  latter  had  just  gained 
a  foothold  in  the  universities  —  was  cut  short  by  the  breaking 
out  of  a  new  conflict,  the  conflict  which  Luther  inaugurated 
against  the  church  in  the  name  of  the  Gospel.    This  struggle 


80  thoroughly  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  German  people,  and 
soon  after  also  of  the  other  nations,  that  the  Renaissance  was 
completely  overshadowed.     Only  after  the  at  least  provisional 
settlement  of  the  conflict  in  the  seventeenth  century,  after 
a  certain  equilibrium  had  been  restored  between  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  powers,  there  arose  in  the  middle  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  and  now  originating  in  Protestant  Germany, 
a  kind  of  literary  and  artistic  after-bloom  of  the  Renaissance. 
The  trait  common  to  the  first  and  the  second  Renaissance  was 
2i  passionate  craving  for  freedom  on  the  part  of  the  individual: 
he  was  no  longer  willing  to  be  bound  by  established  opinions 
and  institutions,  but  desired  the  complete  and  free  develop- 
ment of  his  particular  nature,  the  complete  and  free  exercise 
of  all  his  impulses  and  powers ;  in  the  struggle  for  freedom  he 
opposed  nature  to  convention  and  tradition.    But  this  was  ex- 
actly what  the  Greeks  had  aimed  at :  the  freest  development 
of  the  individual ;  and  for  that  reason  Hellenism  became  the 

ideal  of  humanity. 

3.  The  Reformation,  In  its  origin  it  was  quite  different 
from  the  preceding  movement.  The  deeply  religious,  pas- 
sionately truthful,  thoroughly  national  soul  of  Luther  re- 
belled against  the  system  of  dead  works  and  dead  dogmas, 
welded  together  by  reason  and  authority,  which,  as  he  be- 
lieved, had,  in  the  form  of  ritualism  and  scholastic  theology, 
stifled  the  simple,  living,  vigorous,  and  happy  faith  of  old 
Christianity ;  it  rebelled  as  well  against  the  worldly,  aristo- 
cratic life  of  pleasure  and  culture  pursued  by  the  high  clergy, 
who  were  permeated  with  the  conceptions  of  the  Renaissance ; 
against  the  neo-paganism  of  Leo  X.  and  Albrecht  of  Mayence, 
which  seemed  to  him  a  mockery  upon  Christianity.  Luther 
was  by  no  means  a  man  of  modern  culture  and  learning: 
these  would  have  been  much  more  in  keeping  with  the  Medi- 
cean  Pope,  at  least  with  the  incumbent,  if  not  with  the  func- 
tion of  the  office.  Nor  was  he  a  lover  of  enjoyment  and  a 
worshipper  of  civilization;  these,  too,  were  things  for  which  Leo 


130 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  MODERN   CONCEPTION 


131 


showed  a  more  refined  taste  and  a  deeper  appreciation  than 
he.  Luther  did  not  look  upon  the  church  doctrine  as  not  ra* 
tional  enough  nor  upon  the  church-life  as  not  worldly  enough ; 
nay,  the  reverse  was  the  case :  he  absolutely  repudiated  reason 
in  matters  of  faith,  and  he  had  only  a  very  moderate  opinion 
of  the  value  of  this  earthly  life  and  its  civilization.  He  did 
not  absolutely  condemn  pleasure,  and  he  demanded  that  men 
labor  to  perform  their  earthly  tasks ;  but  he  would  by  no 
means  have  been  willing  to  espouse  the  emancipation  of  the 
flesh  and  the  complete  devotion  to  the  problems  of  civilization. 
Though  he  emphasized  the  positive  side,  he  did  not  do  this 
for  the  sake  of  civilization  and  happiness,  but  in  opposition 
to  the  official  view  of  the  church,  which  characterized  the 
monastic  life  as  in  itself  meritorious  and  holy.  Luther  saw 
in  it  a  false  self-sacrifice,  which,  even  when  sincerely  made, 
hindered  the  true  sacrifice  of  the  heart,  and,  when  not  sin- 
cere, encouraged  a  base  worship  of  the  flesh  under  the  guise 
of  self-denial.  His  attitude  to  the  church  was  similar  in  this 
respect  to  that  of  Jesus  towards  the  self-righteousness  and 
worship  of  the  Pharisees  :  he  demanded  not  that  we  worship 
God  less,  but  that  we  worship  Him  more  and  more  deeply, 
and  that  we  practise  self-denial. 

The  difference  between  the  Reformation  and  the  Renais- 
sance is  also  clearly  seen  in  their  historical  relation.  We  can 
say  that  the  Reformation  robbed  the  Renaissance  of  the  victory 
which  the  latter  already  saw  within  her  grasp.  The  Reform- 
ation, at  first  in  Germany  and  then  in  the  other  countries, 
forced  the  thoughts  of  men  from  worldly  things,  from 
literary  and  artistic  culture,  to  which  the  higher  classes  of 
society  had  devoted  themselves,  back  to  religious  affairs. 
The  Humanists,  who  at  first  hailed  Luther  with  delight, 
soon  almost  entirely  deserted  him  again.  They  saw  that 
they  had  been  mistaken  in  the  Wittenberg  monk,  that 
there  was  a  different  spirit  in  him  than  they  had  imagined. 

But  when  we  examine  the  two  movements,  not  merely  in 


the  form  which  they  assumed  at  the  outset  and  in  the  minds 
of  their  leaders,  Luther  and  Erasmus,  when  we  study  their 
historical  relations,  the  matter  assumes  a  different  aspect. 
We  shall  have  to  confess  that  they  both  helped  to  free  the 
modern  spirit  from  its  mediaeval  covering,  that  the  Reforma- 
tion, too,  especially  when  we  consider  its  more  remote  ratlier 
than  its  immediate  effects,  furthered  the  development  of  the 
subjective,  individual  spirit,  and  the  intellectual  civilization  of 
man.  And  that  was  surely  not  an  accident.  In  a  certain 
fiense,  Luther  undoubtedly  agreed  with  Erasmus  and  the 
Renaissance:  the  craving  of  the  age  for  freedom  and  indi- 
vidualism was  alive  in  him  also.  Luther  at  the  Diet  of 
Worms: — that  is  certainly  a  figure  deserving  to  be  placed 
at  the  beginning  of  modern  times,  the  free  subject  appealing 
from  the  authorities  to  his  own  reason  and  his  own  conscience. 
Herein  lies  the  enormous  difference  between  Luther  and  Augus- 
tine, with  whom  he  has  so  much  in  common  in  other  respects : 
he  is  wholly  lacking  in  the  humilitas  towards  the  empirical 
church,  the  humble  and  obedient  submissiveness  to  the  faith 
of  the  church,  which  is  so  strongly  marked  in  Augustine. 
In  Luther  there  is  a  spirit  of  defiant  independence.  "  My 
cause  is  God's  cause  "  —  with  this  he  boldly  and  defiantly  takes 
his  stand  against  all  authorities,  and  he  is  never  afraid  to 
draw  the  conclusion,  and  to  proclaim  it,  with  the  greatest  pos- 
sible emphasis :  Hence  the  cause  of  those  who  are  against  me 
is  the  cause  of  the  devil. 

And  this  explains  the  significance  of  the  Reformation  for  the 
religious  life:  it  makes  the  individual  independent  in  his 
highest  relation,  in  his  relation  to  God ;  it  does  away  with 
the  church  as  a  necessary  mediator,  it  does  away  with  almost 
the  entire  ecclesiastical  apparatus,  which  the  centuries  had 
constructed  in  order  to  secure  the  salvation  of  the  individual 
by  works  and  formulas  and  sacred  acts. 

Another  effect  is  to  be  noted.  The  church,  having  thus 
lost  its   raison  d'etre  gradually  disappeared,   like   an  organ 


I 


132 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


that  had  become  unnecessary.  New  churches  were,  of 
course,  at  first  established,  in  the  form  of  state  churches ;  but 
they  did  not  possess  the  importance  of  the  old  church.  They 
were  not  a  great  independent  institution,  but  have  always 
formed  a  kind  of  appendage  to  the  state.  The  sovereign 
is  the  head  of  a  state  church,  the  clergy  are  officials,  whose 
number  is  limited  to  the  demand  ;  the  mediaeval  clergy,  on  the 
other  hand,  constituted  a  separate  class  within  or  rather  out- 
side of  society:  their  function  was  not  to  transact  official 
business,  but  to  glorify  the  name  of  God,  for  which  reason 
there  could  never  be  too  many  priests,  churches,  and  altars. 
This  change  manifests  itself  in  all  the  forms  of  our  life.  A 
mediaeval  city  received  its  character  from  its  churches ;  the 
houses  of  the  people  were  gathered  around  the  houses  of  wor- 
ship, as  the  centres  of  life ;  the  old  Rhenish  cities,  and  the 
old  Harz  and  Baltic  cities,  Cologne,  Mayence,  Hildesheim, 
Halberstadt,  Wismar,  Rostock,  to  this  day  take  their  impress 
from  their  church  buildings.  In  modern  cities  like  Berlin, 
Hanover,  Altona,  Darmstadt,  Mannheim,  the  state-building 
predominates :  the  palace,  the  government-building,  the  court 
of  justice,  the  post-office,  the  railway  station,  the  barracks, 
the  prison.  Churches  are  not  often  seen,  and  what  few  there 
are  look  embarrassed  and  cramped  in  the  midst  of  the  im- 
mense houses  which  overtower  them,  or  they  stand  upon  great 
vacant  places  which  they  cannot  command. 

But  not  only  the  architecture  of  our  cities,  our  entire  mode  6i 
life  has  been  secularized.  Asceticism  has  passed  away  with 
the  monasteries;  through  marriage  the  clergy  have  become 
members  of  society.  The  sacramental  acts,  the  thousand 
sacred  customs  and  ceremonies,  with  which  the  entire  medi- 
aeval life  was  interwoven,  have,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
survivals  which  are  also  on  the  point  of  dying  out,  disap- 
peared; the  numerous  holidays  have  been  transformed  into 
working  days,  and  the  daily  divine  service  has  been  sus- 
pended.     Only  on  one  day  of  the  week  have  we  "  church," 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


133 


as  popular  usage  characteristically  expresses  it,  and  as  the 
church  itself  proves;  on  the  other  days  it  is  closed  up  and 
deserted.  All  this  seems  to  signify  that  we  are  living  on  the 
earth,  and  desire  to  live  on  the  earth.  Formerly  everything 
reminded  us  of  the  Beyond,  now  everything  reminds  us  of  the 

Here. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  the  age  have  also  been  secularized  with  the  outward  forms. 
However  artificial  the  religious  life  of  many  may  have  remained 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  countless  references  to  the  hereafter 
and  eternity  could  not  fail  to  make  an  impression  upon  the 
hearts  of  men.  With  the  disappearance  of  the  outward 
ecclesiastical  forms,  the  hearts  of  the  majority  were  weaned 
from  the  thoughts  of  eternity ;  they  confined  themselves  more 
closely  and  exclusively  to  the  earth.  It  surely  was  not  Luther's 
intention  to  exhort  them  to  do  this.  He  favored  the  aboli- 
tion of  ascetic  institutions,  but  not  in  the  interests  of  civiliz- 
ation and  good  living ;  on  the  contrary,  the  life  of  the  canons 
and  monks  seemed  to  him  a  form  of  indolence  congenial  to 
the  flesh,  labor  and  marriage  more  suitable  to  the  lusts.  He 
approved  of  the  restriction  of  ecclesiastical  exercises  and  acts, 
not  in  order  to  gain  time  for  more  important  worldly  affairs ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  looked  upon  them  as  a  mere  compromise 
with  heaven,  to  which,  after  all,  our  entire  life  ought  to  be 
devoted.  For  Luther  heaven  remained  the  home,  the  earth  a 
vale  of  tears ;  and  these  conceptions  and  feelings  were  for  a 
long  time,  if  not  the  prevailing  sentiments,  at  least  peculiar 
to  particular  individuals,  in  Protestantism.  Nevertheless,  if 
we  consider  the  total  effects,  we  can  say  that  the  Reformation 
helped  to  turn  man's  life  earthward,  towards  civilization,  and 
away  from  the  hereafter  and  salvation.  However  untrue 
monasticism  may  often  prove  to  its  ideal,  it  nevertheless 
contributes  to  keep  alive  in  the  Catholic  world  the  feeling  — 
weak  though  it  may  often  be  —  that  the  goal  of  life  is  not 
an  earthly  one.     It  still  retains  something  of  the   spirit  of 


•ii 


134 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


unworldliness  characteristic  of  primitive   Christianity.     And 
those  church  exercises  and  duties,  the  confessional  and  peni- 
tential system,  the  prayers  and  fasts,  have  the  same  effect ; 
superficially  though  they  are  usually  performed,  and   great 
though  the  danger  may  be  of  making  the  religious  life  ex- 
tern^l  and  shallow,  nay  of  corrupting  the  morality,  they  still 
direct  the  gaze  to  something  beyond  this  life  and  its  aims. 
We  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  Luther  carried  Christianity 
from  the  cloisters  into  the  world,  that  he  exalted  fidelity  to 
the  daily  caUing  into  a  divine  service.     This  was  certainly  his 
aim,  and  we  undoubtedly  find  something  of  this  spirit  even  in 
our  times.    On  the  other  hand,  it  would  not  be  doing  justice 
to  the  truth  were  we  to  deny  that  the  great  majority  used 
their  freedom  from  the  duties  of  external  worship  to  neglect 
every  form  of  divine  worship ;  even  Luther  repeatedly  com- 
plains that  the  freedom  of  the  Gospel  is  abused  as  a  free- 
dom  of  the  flesh.     Melanchthon  praises  Luther  in  his  funeral 
sermon  for  having  delivered  us  from  the  paedagogia  puer- 
His  of  the  old  church.     It  is,  however,  not  yet  settled  that 
religion  can  dispense  with  such  a  paedagogia  puerilis,  which 
admonishes   us  daily  by  means  of  petty  practices.      It  is 
also  a  peculiar  fact  that  men  are  more  ready  to  believe  in 
things  and  institutions  which  require  something  of  them: 
they  measure  their  value  according  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
investment.     This  surely  has  something  to  do  with  the  strong 
attachment  of  the  masses  to  the  Catholic  church.    The  Protes- 
tant church  demands  nothing,  that  is,  nothing  outwardly,  but 
faith  alone ;  the  conclusion  which  suggests  itself  to  common- 
sense  is :  hence  it  has  nothing  to  offer  us,  nothing  at  least 

for  which  we  care. 

Just  as  little  can  we  or  will  we  deny  that  the  Reformation 
furthered  the  development  of  subjective  thought,  of  the  criti- 
cal,  rationalistic  spirit.  The  downfall  of  the  church  shattered 
the  great  authority  which  had  controlled  the  thoughts  of  men, 
not  only  outwardly,  but  inwardly,  for  a  thousand  years.     The 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


135 


new  churches  had  no  authority  ;  they  attempted  to  retain  it, 
and  even  vindicated  it  against  their  opponents  with  the  same 
external  means  employed  by  the  latter ;  but  they  were  with- 
out inner  authority.     They  owed  their  existence  to  revolution, 
to  the  destruction  of  the  strongest  human  authority  that  the 
Occident  had  ever  seen ;  they  could  not  hide  their  origin. 
Against   authority   they   appealed  to   the    Scriptures  as  the 
higher   authority.     But  did  not  the  old  church  first  invest 
these  writings  with   authority  by  establishing  the  canon? 
And  did  she  not  have  the  right  of  interpretation  on  her 
side,  according  to  the  practice  of  centuries  ?    The  appeal  to 
a  better  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  was  therefore,  ulti- 
mately, an  appeal  to  individual  reason  and  conscience.     The 
new  churches  could   not  deny  any  one  this  appeal,  upon 
which  their  own  title  was  based,  and  whenever  they  did  so, 
their  refusal  was  an  inner  contradiction,  and  therefore  without 
inner  force.      At  any  rate,  the  emancipation    of    subjective 
thought,  not  only  in  the  Protestant,  but  also  in  the  Catholic 
countries  —  whether  we  regard  it  as  a  merit  or  a  fault  — 
received  a  mighty  impetus  from  the  Reformation. 

4.  The  three  or  four  centuries  that  have  passed  since  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  era,  are  pitched  in  the  same  key  as 
these  preludia.     The  desire  for  civilization,  which  lay  hidden 
beneath  the  Christian-ecclesiastical  surface  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  is  now  openly  and  unreservedly  recognized  as  the 
only  legitimate  ideal.     True,  the  modern  epoch,  too,  has  its 
heavy-laden  hearts,  who,  in  their  yearning  for  peace   seek 
refuge  from  the  turmoil  of  the  world  and  find  rest  in  Christian- 
ity.    But  they  by  no  means  meet  with  either  the  formal  or 
the  actual  acknowledgment  that  they  have  chosen  the  better 
part.     Everything  that  is  really  characteristic  of  the  modern 
period,  everything  with  which  a  history  of  modern  life,  of  the 
modern   state,  modern   society,  modern  civilization,  modern 
philosophy,  modern  art  and  literature,  is  accustomed  to  deal, 
belongs  to  the  other  movement.     Real  Christianity  is  some- 


J    ' 

m 


r' ' 


136 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY 


thing  so  foreign  to  the  champions  of  the  modern  era  that 
they  are  unable  to  understand  how  any  one  can  feel  and  live 
in  that  way ;  they  regard  it  as  extravagant  idealism  and 
enthusiasm,  as  a  symptom  of  disease,  which  has  only  a 
pathological  interest.  Even  the  Catholic  world,  which  has 
preserved  the  ascetic  life  in  the  cloisters,  is  not  very  out- 
spoken in  confessing  its  principle.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact 
that  the  Catholic  historians  do  not  answer  the  charge  that  the 
Catholic  countries  have  not  kept  abreast  of  the  Protestant 
nations  in  civilization  by  declaring  that  it  is  to  the  Catholics' 
credit  to  have  still  some  thought  of  eternity,  —  unlike  the 
Protestants,  who,  being  merely  intent  on  the  mundane  world, 
naturally  excel  them  in  that  world's  civilization.  Instead,  the 
reproach  is  really  felt  as  a  reproach,  and  the  attempt  is  made 
to  show  that  it  is  not  well-founded,  that  the  church  has  really 
done  the  most  for  civilization. 

The  estimate  which  it  places  upon  scientific  hnoivledge  may 
be  used  as  a  criterion  of  the  spirit  of  an  age.     According  to 
the  old  Christian  conception,  the  worth  of  a  man  is  absolutely 
independent  of  the  knowledge  and  culture  he  possesses ;  in 
the  eyes  of  God,  faith  and  love,  and  not  culture  and  philoso- 
phy, have  worth.    The  modern  era  unreservedly  returns  to  the 
Greek  conception  that  the  highest  and  most  important  func- 
tion  of  man  is  the  exercise  of  reason  in  scientific  knowledge. 
The  sciences  are  the  pride  of  the  modern  times.     The  Middle 
Ages  are  despised  as  a  barbarous  and  benighted  period,  be- 
cause they  have  done  nothing  for  science.     But  we  also  find 
in  the  modern  estimate  of  knowledge  another  peculiar  trait, 
which  is  lacking  in  the  Greeks :  for  the  Greeks,  knowledge  was 
the  highest  good  as  such  and  desired  for  its  own  sake ;  the 
moderns  prize  it  especially  for  its  practical  utility.     For  them 
physics  is  a  practical  science,  nay,  the  practical  science ;  for 
the  champions  of  modern  civilization  do  not  think  very  much 
of  that  practical  philosophy  of  which  the  Greek  philosophers 
expected   so  much.     Morality,  Buckle   believes,  has  always 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


137 


been  the  same,  it  has  always  been  very  much  approved  and 
very  little  followed ;  the  progress  of  the  human  race  depends 
upon  the  progress  of  the  natural  sciences.  So  a  great  many 
of  the  leaders  of  modern  culture  believe  with  Buckle.  When 
our  newspapers,  which  reflect  the  opinions  of  their  readers, 
by  pre-established  harmony,  let  us  say,  desire  to  praise  the 
nineteenth  century,  they  at  once  begin  to  speak  of  railroads 
and  steamships,  telegraphs  and  electrotechnics,  armor-clads 
and  breechloaders. 

5.  It  is  worth  observing  how  soon  the  modern  age  became 
conscious  —  instinctively,  one  is  tempted  to  believe  —  of  its 
peculiar  character.  Francis  Bacon  dates  the  beginning  of 
the  modern  era  from  the  three  great  inventions  of  the  mag- 
netic needle,  gunpowder,  and  printing.  These  achievements 
characterize  the  spirit  of  the  new  epoch  of  the  history  of 
humanity;  its  motto  is:  Knowledge  is  power.  Inventions 
Q)pera)  are  now  made  the  test  of  knowledge.  The  old 
science  gave  its  possessor  skill  in  vanquishing  opponents  in 
debate;  the  new  science  gives  him  the  power  to  conquer 
nature  by  art  ( vhysici  est  non  disputando  adversarium,  sed 
naturam  operando  vincere).  Bacon  has  attempted,  in  his  two 
main  works,  to  lay  the  foundation  and  to  outline  the  method 
of  this  new  science.  In  a  little  unfinished  essay,  which  is 
found  among  his  works  under  the  title  Mva  Atlantis^  he  has 
drawn  a  picture  of  the  perfect  civilization  of  the  future.  The 
undertaking  has  frequently  been  repeated  since  then;  it  is 
worth  while,  however,  to  cast  a  glance  at  the  first  attempt 
of  this  kind.  The  JVova  Atlantis  is  an  island  in  the  far  West. 
The  narrator,  who  had  been  driven  out  of  the  right  course 
and  carried  to  its  shores,  tells  us  that  the  noblest  institution 
of  the  entire  country  is  a  natural-scientific  society  founded 
by  an  ancient  king  and  called  Domus  Salomonis,  or  the  Col- 
lege of  the  Six  Days'  Works.  "  The  end  of  the  foundation," 
so  the  guide  explains,  "  is  the  knowledge  of  causes,  and  the 
secret  notions  of  things  ;  and  the  enlargement  of  the  bounds 


I'i! 


fl 


138 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


of  human  empire,  to  the  effecting  of  all  things  possible.'' 
Among  the  great  number  of  particular  institutions  which 
serve  this  purpose  are  large  and  deep  caves  under  the  earth, 
some  of  them  three  miles  in  depth ;  they  are  used  "  for  all 
coagulations,  indurations,   refrigerations,   and   conservations 
of  bodies ; "  as  well  as  for  producing  natural  and  new  arti- 
ficial metals,  from  materials  which  lie  there  for  many  years  ; 
also  for   curing  certain   diseases  ;  and  for  prolongation   of 
life  in  some  hermits  that  choose  to  live  there,  and  indeed  live 
very  long,  and  possess  wonderful  knowledge.    There  are  also 
high  towers,  the  highest  about  half  a  mile  in  height,  or  in- 
cluding the  height  of  the  hill  about  three  miles,  which  are 
used  especially  for  meteorological  observations  ;  lakes  both 
salt  and  fresh  for  the  production  of  fish  and  water-fowl  as 
well  as  for  experiments  in  the  water;  artificial  wells  and 
fountains  with  all  kinds  of  mineral  waters,  amongst  them  the 
so-called  Water  of  Paradise  (^aqua  Faradisi),  which  is  un- 
usually efficacious  for  the  preservation  of  health  and  the 
prolongation  of  life.    They  have  also  great  and  spacious 
houses,  in  which  the  meteorological  occurrences,  snow,  hail, 
rain,   and    thunder-storms   are    imitated,   and   all   kinds   of 
animals  are  produced ;  large  and  various  orchards  and  gar- 
dens, "  wherein  we  do  not  so  much  respect  beauty,  as  variety 
of  ground  and  soil,  proper  for  divers  trees  and  herbs,"  bear- 
ing the  richest  fruit ;  "  we  have  also  means  to  make  divers 
plants  rise  by  mixtures  of  earth  without  seeds."    "  We  have 
also  parks  and  enclosures  of  all  sorts  of  beasts  and  birds, 
which  we  use  not  only  for  view,  or  rareness,  but  likewise  for 
dissection  and  trials ;  that  thereby  we  may  take  light  what 
may  be  brought  upon  the  body  of  man.     Wherein  we  find 
many  strange  effects;    as  continuing  life  in  them,  though 
divers  parts,  which  you  account  vital,  be  perished  and  taken 
forth ;  resuscitating  of  some  that  seem  dead  in  appearance ; 
and  the  like.     We  also  try  all  poisons  and  other  medicines 
upon  them,  as  well  of  chirurgy  as  physic.     By  art,  likewise, 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


139 


we  make  them  greater  or  taller  than  their  kind  is,  and  con- 
trariwise dwarf  them,  and  stay  their  growth ;  we  make  them 
more  fruitful  and  bearing  than  their  kind  is ;  and  contrari- 
wise barren  and  not  generative.  Also  we  make  them  differ 
in  color,  shape,  activity,  many  ways.  We  find  means  to 
make  commixtures  and  copulations  of  different  kinds ;  which 
have  produced  many  new  kinds,  and  them  not  barren,  as  the 
general  opinion  is.  We  make  a  number  of  kinds  of  serpents, 
worms,  flies,  fishes,  of  putrefaction;  whereof  some  are  ad- 
vanced (in  effect)  to  be  perfect  creatures  like  beasts  or  birds  ; 
and  have  sexes,  and  do  propagate.  Neither  do  we  this  by 
chance,  but  we  know  beforehand  of  what  matters  and  com- 
mixture what  kind  of  those  creatures  will  arise."  Of  course 
the  most  astonishing  results  are  produced  in  their  brew- 
houses,  bakehouses,  and  kitchens,  etc. :  "  we  strive  to  have 
drinks  of  extreme  thin  parts,  insomuch  as  some  of  them  put 
upon  the  back  of  your  hand  will,  with  a  little  stay,  pass  through 
to  the  palm,  and  yet  taste  mild  to  the  mouth."  There  are  also 
places  where  experiments  are  made  with  lights  and  colors ; 
here  lights  of  every  strength  and  color  are  produced;  they 
have  also  "glasses  and  means  to  see  small  objects  afar  off 
and  minute  bodies  perfectly  and  distinctly,  such  as  heavenly 
bodies,  or  the  parts  of  small  animals,  or  corpuscles  in  urine 
and  the  blood."  In  other  places  experiments  are  made  with 
sounds,  smells,  and  tastes  in  the  same  highly  practical  way. 
There  are  also  engine-houses,  where  wonderful  cannons,  fly- 
ing-machines, ships  and  boats  for  going  under  water, 
machines,  as  well  as  artificial  men,  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  and 
serpents  are  made  ;  "  item  some  perpetual  motions  (nonnuUi 
motus  perpetui}.^^  ^ 

We  see,  these  are  new  pictures  which  the  new  age  paints 
upon  the  curtain  of  the  future.  The  old  Christianity  raised 
its  eyes  from  the  earth,  which  offered  nothing  and  promised 

1  [See  Ellis,  Speddiug,  and  Heath's  edition  of  Bacon's  works,  vol.  V.,  pp.  359' 
413.  — Tr.] 


I  !■ 


140  ORIGIKS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

nothing,  to  heaven  and  its  suprasensuous  glory.  The  nejr 
age  is  looking  for  heaven  upon  earth ;  it  hopes  to  attam  to 
the  perfect  civilization  through  science,  and  expects  that  this 
will  make  life  healthy,  long,  rich,  beautiful,  and  happy. 

Bacon  once  called  himself  the  herald  of  the  new  era.  In- 
deed, it  is  a  splendid  army  that  follows  him  to  the  conquest 
of  heaven  upon  earth.  Let  us  hear  another  and  still  another 
leader  of  the  host  in  regard  to  the  goal  and  the  methods  of 

the  enterprise.  .       ,    ,  ^ 

6.  Descartes,  who  has  a  greater  claim  than  any  other  to  be 
called  the  leader  of  modem  philosophy,  formulates  the  pro- 
gramme  of  his  philosophical  reforms  in  the  little  treatise  on 
Method  (1637).     In  the  last  part  he  tells  that  by  his  me  hod 
he  reached  new  notions  in  metaphysics  and   morals  which 
pleased  him  greatly ;  but  that,  owing  to  his  hostility  to  writ- 
L  books,  he  had  not  published  them.    «  But  as  soon  as  I 
had  acquired  some  general  notions  respecting  Physics,  and, 
be^rinning  to  make  trial  of  them  in  various  particular  diffi- 
culties,  had  observed  how  far  they  can  carry  us,  and  how 
much  they  differ  from  the  principles  that  have  been  employed 
up  to  the  present  time,  I  believed  that  I  could  not  keep  them 
concealed   without  sinning    grievously   against  the  law   by 
which  we  are  bound  to  promote,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  the  gen- 
eral  good  of  mankind.    For  by  them  I  perceived  it  to  be 
possible  to  arrive  at  knowledge  highly  useful  in  life,  and  m 
room  of  the  Speculative  Philosophy  usually   taught  in   the 
Schools,  to  discover  a  Practical,  by  means  of  which,  knowing 
the  force  and  action  of  fire,  water,  air,  the  stars,  the  heavens, 
and  all  the  other  bodies  that  surround  us,  as  distinctly  as  we 
know  the  various  crafts  of  our  artisans,  we  might  also  apply 
them  in  the  same  way  to  all  the  uses  to  which  they  are 
adapted,  and  thus  render  ourselves  the  lords  and  possessors 
of  nature.     And  this  is  a  result  to  be  desired,  not  only  in 
order  to  the  invention  of  an  infinity  of  arts  by  which  we 
mi^vht  be  enabled  to  enjoy  without  any  trouble  the  fruits  of 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


141 


the  earth,  and  all  its  comforts,  but  also  and  especially  for 
the  preservation  of  health,  which  is  without  doubt,  of  all  the 
blessings  of  this  life,  the  first  and  fundamental  one  ;  for  the 
mind  is  so  intimately  dependent  upon  the  condition  and 
relation  of  the  organs  of  the  body,  that  if  any  means  can 
ever  be  found  to  render  men  wiser  and  more  ingenious  than 
hitherto,  I  believe  that  it  is  in  Medicine  they  must  be  souglit 
for.  It  is  true  that  the  science  of  Medicine,  as  it  now  exists, 
contains  few  things  whose  utility  is  very  remarkable  ;  but 
without  any  wish  to  depreciate  it,  I  am  confident  that  there 
is  no  one,  even  among  those  whose  profession  it  is,  who  does 
not  admit  that  all  at  present  known  in  it  is  almost  nothing 
in  comparison  of  what  remains  to  be  discovered ;  and  that 
we  could  free  ourselves  from  an  infinity  of  maladies  of  body 
as  well  as  of  mind,  and  perhaps  also  even  from  the  debility 
of  age,  if  we  had  sufficiently  ample  knowledge  of  their  causes 
and  of  the  remedies  provided  for  us  by  Nature.  But  since  I 
designed  to  employ  my  whole  life  in  the  search  after  so  neces- 
sary a  Science,  and  since  I  had  fallen  in  with  a  path  which  seems 
to  me  such,  that  if  any  one  follow  it  he  must  inevitably  reach 
the  end  desired,  unless  he  be  hindered  either  by  the  shortness 
of  life  or  the  want  of  experiments,  I  judged  that  there  could 
be  no  more  effectual  provision  against  these  two  impediments 
than  if  I  were  faithfully  to  communicate  to  the  public  all  the 
little  I  might  myself  have  found,  and  incite  men  of  superior 
genius  to  strive  to  proceed  farther,  by  contributing,  each  accord- 
ino-  to  his  inclination  and  ability,  to  the  experiments  which  it 
would  be  necessary  to  make,  and  also  by  informing  the  public 
of  all  they  might  discover,  so  that,  by  the  last  beginning 
where  those  before  them  had  left  off,  and  thus  connecting  the 
lives  and  labors  of  many,  we  might  collectively  proceed  much 
farther  than  each  by  himself  could  do  "  And  in  the  preface 
to  his  system  (Frincipia  Philosophlae,  1644)  he  says,  speak- 
ing of  the  utility  of  the  new  philosophy  as  opposed  to  the 
philosophy  of  the  school,  "  that  it  is  by  it  we  are  distinguished 


Li, 
r 


■.' ' 


142  ORIGINS  OF  MOKAL  PHILOSOPHY 

from  savages  and  barbarians,  and  that  the  civilization  and 
culture  of  a  nation  is  regulated  by  the  degree  in  which  true 
philosophy  flourishes  in  it,  and,  accordingly  that  to  contain  true 
philosophers  is  the  highest  privilege  a  state  can  enjoy."  The 
philosophy,  however,  which  he  means,  he  describes  soon 
after  •  "  AH  philosophy  is  like  a  tree,  of  which  Metaphysics 
is  the  root,  Physics  the  trunlc,  and  all  the  other  sciences 
the  branches  that  grow  out  of  this  trunk,  which  are  re- 
duced  to  three  principal,  namely,  Medicine,  Mechanics,  and 

Ethics  "  ^ 

We  may  say,  I  believe,  that  no  age  has  ever  had  a  clearer 
idea  of  its  goal  and  of  the  road  leading  to  it:  the  goal  is 
heaven  on  earth,  the  road  to  it,  natural  science.  Through 
technology  and  medicine,  the  two  great  applications  of  natu- 
ral  science,  the  future  will  reach  a  state  in  which  men  wil  , 
without  work  and  in  permanent  health  of  body  and  soul, 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  the  earth  ;  perhaps,  as  the  serious  Des- 
cartes  no  less  than  the  somewhat  charlatanistic  Bacon  antici- 
pates,  medicine  may  even  bring  about  a  prolongation  of  hfe 
and  an  increase  of  all  intellectual  and  moral  powers. 

The  fearlessness,  nay  we  may  say,  the  bold  recklessness, 
with  which  the  control  and  use  of  nature  by  science  is  planned 
for  man,  stands  in  remarkable  contrast  to  the  awe  with  which 
the  Middle  Ages  contemplated  nature.    The  Middle  Ages,  too, 
sou-ht  to  gain  control  over  things,  they  too  suspected  that  it 
mi-ht  be  obtained  through  knowledge.     But  they  had  at  the 
same  time  a  secret  dread  of  this  knowledge  and  activity ;  they 
regarded  it  as  an  unholy  business,   as  a  black  art,  as  the 
work  of  the  devil,  who  as  the  prince  and  lord  of  this  world 
could  indeed  grant  sway  over  it.    All  those  who  had  the  repu- 
tation of  possessing  such  efPective  knowledge,  were  looked 
upon  as  magicians :    Albertus  Magnus,  Roger  Bacon,  Pope 
Sylvester  II.     Soldan  quotes  a  very  characteristic  narrative 
from  Gregory  of  Tours'  Eistory  of  the  Franks  in  his  History 

1  [Translation  from  Veitch's  10th  edition.] 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


143 


of  the  Trials  of  Witches,^  "  The  archdeacon  Leonartes  of 
Bourges  suffered  from  a  cataract,  and  no  physician  could  cure 
him.  At  last  he  betook  himself  to  the  Basilica  of  St.  Martin, 
where  he  spent  two  or  three  months  in  constant  prayer  and 
fasting.  On  a  fast  day  his  eyesight  was  restored  to  him.  He 
hurried  home,  and  sent  for  a  Jewish  physician,  at  whose 
advice  he  placed  cupping-glasses  on  his  neck  to  complete  the 
cure.  And  then  it  happened  that  as  the  blood  began  to  flow, 
his  blindness  began  to  return.  Full  of  shame  Leonartes  went 
back  to  the  church,  prayed  and  fasted  as  before :  but  in  vain. 
Let  everybody,  so  Gregory  concludes,  learn  from  this  occur- 
rence that  when  once  he  has  been  blessed  with  heavenly  medi- 
cines never  again  to  have  recourse  to  earthly  arts." 

This  fear,  from  which,  by  the  way,  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
were  not  free,  the  modern  times  have  wholly  lost ;  nothing  is 
proof  against  them ;  man  has  a  right  to  do  what  he  can  do. 
The  belief  in  transcendent  powers,  good  and  bad,  by  whose 
help  man  is  supposed  to  exercise  a  magic  influence  upon 
the  course  of  nature,  has  been  constantly  waning  since  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  era  ;  man's  confidence  in  his  natural 
powers  has  increased  in  the  same  proportion. 

7.  The  modern  science  of  nature  is  supplemented  by  the 
modern  science  of  the  state  and  society/.  The  latter,  too,  is  a 
practical  science :  it  seeks  first  to  construct  the  ideal  of  the 
perfect  state  and  the  legal  order,  and  then  to  realize  it  in 
practice.  Political  Utopias  are  the  counterpart  of  the  physi- 
cal-mechanical Utopias;  they  accompany  each  other,  being 
frequently  connected  with  each  other,  through  the  entire  age, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  down  to  the 
socialistic  Utopias  of  the  nineteenth  century.  By  the  side  of 
Descartes,  the  leader  of  modern  natural  philosophy,  stands 
the  Englishman  Thomas  Hobbes,  the  real  leader  in  the  field 
of  political  philosophy.  He  claims  this  position  for  himself : 
astronomy    begins   with    Copernicus,   physics   with    Galileo, 

1  Geschichte  der  Hexenprocesse,  I.,  114. 


144 


ORIGINS  OF   MORAL   PHILOSOPHY 


THE   MODERN   CONCEPTION 


145 


physiology  with  Harvey,  while  the  science  of  the  state  is  no 
older  than  his  own  book  De  cive}    He  has  the  highest  opin- 
ion of  the  practical  value  of  this  science.     In  the  dedicatory 
epistle  which  accompanies  his  work  on  the  state,  we  read : 
«  For  everything  in  which  the  present  excels  the  barbarism  of 
the  past  we  are  indebted  to  mathematical  physics  ;   when 
moral  philosophy  will  have  solved  its  problems  with  the  same 
certainty,  it  will  be  hard  to  see  what  human  labor  can  farther 
accomplish  for  the  happiness  of  this  life."     For  Hobbes  the 
state  is  the  earthly  providence;    endowed  with  unlimited 
rights  and  powers,  it  bestows  peace  and  welfare  upon  its  sub- 
jects:    "outside   of    the   state  there   is   passion,  war,   fear, 
poverty,  ugliness,  solitude,   barbarism,   ignorance,  ferocious- 
ness ;  in  the   state,  reason,  peace,  security,  wealth,  beauty, 
society,  elegance,  science,  benevolence."  ^ 

So  there  is  no  doubt  that,  if  to  the  perfect  mechanics  and 
medicine  we  add  the  perfect  politics,  we  shall  realize  heaven 

on  earth. 

8.  Finally,  a  man  may  be  mentioned  who  paved  the  way 
for  these   views  in   Germany  :  I  mean  Leibniz.     There  was 
hardly  a  field  of  human  thought  and  human  action  which 
Leibniz  left  untouched  with  his  plans  for  the  promotion  of  the 
happiness  of  the  human  race.     With  feverish  haste  he  was 
constantly  devising  new  projects  :  for  the  establishment  of  an 
improved  German  Empire,  of  a  political  system  for  Europe,  of 
a  peaceful  church  union,  for  the  codification  of  all  scientific 
and  technical  knowledge  in  encyclopedias,  for  the  reform  of 
the  system  of  education,  for  the  organization  of   the   book 
trade,  for  the  care  of  the  poor  by  employing  them  in  public 
workshops,  for  tlie  improvement  of  mining.     But  one  project 
especially  occupied  him  during  his  entire  life  :  the  organiza- 
tion  of  scientific  research.     Leibniz  endeavored  to  establish 
institutions  in  the  North  and  in  the  East,  after  the  pattern  of 
the  London  and  Paris  societies.     As  his  final  goal  he  perhaps 

1  Preface  to  De  corpore,  1655.  '^  ^«  "yc,  X.,  1. 


had  in  view  an  international  federation  of  societies  into  a 
great  association,  whose  aim  should  be  to  preserve  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  human  race,  to  regulate  all  research,  and  so 
to  extend  the  empire  of  reason  on  earth,  as  far  as  possible. 
His  endeavors  in  regard  to  the  invention  of  a  philosophical 
calculus  and  a  universally  intelligible,  international  sign- 
language,  suggest  such  a  project.  The  object  of  all  science, 
however,  consists  in  its  application  ;  not  curiosity,  but  utility 
determines  the  value  of  every  science.  In  the  memorial  to 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  in  which  he  proposed  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  Society  of  Sciences  at  Berlin  (1700),  we  read : 
"  Such  an  electoral  Society  should  not  be  governed  by  mere 
curiosity  or  desire  for  knowledge,  and  occupy  itself  with  fruit- 
less experiments,  or  be  content  with  the  mere  invention  of 
useful  things  without  applying  them,  as  has  been  the  case  in 
London,  Paris,  and  Florence  :  but  the  object  should  be  utility 
in  both  theory  as  well  as  in  practice  from  the  very  start.  The 
aim  would  therefore  be  to  combine  theoriam  cum  praxiy  and 
not  only  to  improve  the  arts  and  the  sciences,  but  also  the 
country  and  the  people,  agriculture,  manufacture,  and  com- 
merce, and,  in  a  word,  the  articles  of  food."^  We  are 
reminded  of  what  the  scientific  society  in  the  Nova  Atlantis 
accomplished  for  the  improvement  of  articles  of  food. 

These  are  the  views  of  the  leaders  of  thought  with  respect 
to  the  aim  of  their  age  :  civilization ;  above  all,  technical-scien- 
tific civilization,  based  upon  scientific  knowledge  and  secured 
by  perfect  political  institutions  —  that  is  the  programme  of 
the  modern  era. 

9.  We  must  confess,  it  has  labored  earnestly  and  success- 
fully for  the  execution  of  its  programme.  As  for  the  con- 
quest of  nature  by  science,  even  Bacon,  who  was  not  modest 
in  his  claims,  would  hardly  refuse  to  admit  that  astonishing 
results  have  been  achieved.  It  is  true,  the  elixir  of  life  and 
the  perjpetuum  mobile  have  not  yet  been  found,  and  the  flying 

1  Leibniz,  German  Writings,  published  by  Guhrauer,  II.,  267. 

10 


ii! 


m 


:«. 


fl'P 


146  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

machine  and  the  art  of  makhig  gold  are  still  in  the  future ; 
but  many  of  our  inventions  would  make  a  creditable  showmg 
by  the  side  of  those  in  the  Atlantis.  And  in  the  field  of  poli- 
tics and  law,  some  very  serious  beginnings  have  been  made, 
to  say  the  least.  The  entire  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies were  filled  with  the  desire  to  bring  about  the  rational 
State  by  means  of  the  science  of  the  state,  and  thereby  to 
promote  the  welfare  of  all.  The  names  of  Frederick  William 
II.  and  Frederick  II.,  Maria  Theresa  and  Joseph  II.,  prove 
the  sincerity  and  the  earnestness  of  these  efforts.  And  the 
French  Revolution  really  desired  the  same  thing,  though  m  a 
different  way  :  the  state  in  which  reason  and  law  should  rule 

for  the  common  good. 

With    unmixed    feelings   of    satisfaction    and    pride    the 
Aufkldrung  contemplated  its  achievements,  at  the  end  of  the 
ei-hteenth  century.     A  few  years  ago  a  document  was  taken 
from  the  steeple-knob  of  St.   Margaret's  Church   at   Gotha, 
which  had  been  placed  there  in  the  year  1784 ;  this  paper 
contains  the  testimonial  which  the  modern  era  gave  itself  a 
hundred  years  ago.     "  Our  age,"  it  declares,  "  occupies  the 
happiest  period  of  the  eighteenth  century.     Emperors,  kmgs, 
and  princes  humanely  descend  from  their  dreaded  heights, 
despise  pomp  and  splendor,  become  the  fathers,  friends,  and 
confidants  of  their  people.     Religion  rends  its  priestly  garb 
and  appears  in  its  divine  essence.     Enlightenment  makes  giant 
strides.     Thousands  of  our  brothers  and  sisters,  who  formerly 
lived  in  sanctified  inactivity,  are  given  back  to  the   state. 
Sectarian  hatred  and  persecution  for  conscience'  sake   are 
vanishing ;  love  of  man  and  freedom  of  thought  are  gaining 
the  supremacy.     The  arts  and  sciences  are  flourishing,  and 
our  gaze  is  penetrating  deeply  into  the  workshop  of  nature. 
Handicraftsmen  as  well  as  artists  are  reaching  perfection, 
useful  knowledge  is  growing  among  all  classes.      Here  you 
have  a  faithful  description  of  our  times.     Do  not  haughtily 
look  down  upon  us  if  you  are  higher  and  see  farther  than  we  ; 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


147 


recognize  rather  from  the  picture  which  we  have  drawn  how 
bravely  and  energetically  we  labored  to  raise  you  to  the  posi- 
tion which  you  now  hold  and  to  support  you  in  it.  Do  the 
same  for  your  descendants  and  be  happy."  ^ 

10.  When  we  compare  the  self-confidence  of  the  dying 
eighteenth  century,  as  expressed  in  these  lines,  with  the 
opinion  which  the  dying  nineteenth  century  has  of  itself,  we 
note  a  strong  contrast.  Instead  of  the  proud  consciousness 
of  having  reached  a  pinnacle,  a  feeling  that  we  are  on  the 
decline ;  instead  of  joyful  pride  in  the  successes  achieved  and 
joyful  hope  of  new  and  greater  things,  a  feeling  of  disap- 
pointment and  weariness,  and  a  premonition  of  a  coming 
catastrophe ;  in  literature  instead  of  the  essential  harmony  of 
thought  and  feeling,  a  chorus  of  confused,  excited,  and  dis- 
cordant voices,  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  heard 
before ;  in  public  life,  instead  of  the  unanimity  of  all 
thoughtful  and  right-thinking  men  which  we  find  in  the 
age  of  enlightenment,  such  discord  and  vindictiveness  in 
party  strife,  as  has  long  ago  discouraged  all  men  of  refine- 
ment and  serious  thought  from  participating  in  it ;  but  one 
fundamental  note  running  through  the  awful  confusion  of 
voices  :  pessimism  !  Indignation  and  disappointment :  these 
seem  to  be  the  two  strings  to  which  the  emotional  life  of  the 
present  is  attuned.  Schopenhauer  is  its  philosophical  choir- 
master, everywhere  his  voice  is  heard  through  the  din.     All 

1  In  Hettner,  History  of  Literature  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  IH.,  2,  170. 
With  a  similar  statement  a  contemporaneous  historian  of  modern  philosophy,  the 
clear-sighted  J.  G.  Buhle,  begins  the  exposition  of  the  philosophy  of  the  eight- 
eenth century :  "  We  are  now  approaching  the  most  recent  period  of  the  history 
of  philosophy,  which  is  the  most  remarkable  and  the  most  brilliant  period  of 
philosophy  as  well  as  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts  and  of  the  civilization  of 
liumanity  in  general.  The  seed  which  had  been  planted  in  the  immediately  preced- 
ing centuries  began  to  bloom  into  perfection  in  tlie  eighteenth.  Of  no  century 
can  it  be  said  with  so  much  truth  as  of  the  eighteenth  that  it  utilized  the  achieve- 
ments of  its  predecessors,  to  bring  humanity  to  a  greater  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  perfection.  It  has  reached  a  height,  which,  considering  the  limitations  of 
human  nature  and  the  course  of  our  past  experience,  we  should  be  surprised  to 
see  the  genius  of  future  generations  maintain." 


!!;'• 


W 

lit 

fl' 


148  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

poets  and  litterateurs  have  studied  him,  and  have  learned 
from  him  the  great  truth  :  the  obverse  represents  the  essence  of 
things,  the  f agade  is  mere  sham  and  illusion.  What  Rousseau 
hurled  into  the  face  of  his  times  as  an  unheard-of  paradox, 
namely,  that  culture  and  civilization  do  not  make  men  better 
andhappier,Schopenhauer  teaches  asaphilosoplncal  theorem: 

Civilization  increases  our  misery,  civilization  is  one  great  faux 

^'what  is  the  meaning  of  tiiese  phenomena?    Is  pessimism 

a  sign  that  the  European  family  of  nations  is  nearmg  its  old 

a.e'     Have  the  modern  nations  reached  that  pomt  m  their 

hLry  which  the  old  world  had  reached  at  the  begmmng 

of  the  Roman  Empire  ?    Are  the  pessimistic  poets  and  plnlo- 

sophers  the  precursors  and  predicters  of  the  end,  o  the  dis- 

appearance  of  civilization?    Is  the  yearning  for  deliverance 

taking  possession  of  our  age,  as  it  took  possession  of  the 

Hindoos  and  antiquity?    Does  the  phrase  fin  de  sihcle,  with 

which  our  neighbors  are  playing,  signify  not  only  the  century 

which  is  drawing  to  a  close,  but  the  end  of  this  occidental 

world-epoch  in  general,— ^ms  saeculi? 

Whoever  leans  to  pessimism  himself  will  affirm  the  qucs- 
tion  ;  every  philosopher  of  history   obtains   the  key  for  the 
interpretation  of  things  from  subjective  feelings.     He,  how- 
ever,  whose  personal  feelings  prompt  him  to  take  the  other 
side,  will  deny  it ;  he  will  see  in  pessimism  nothing  but  an 
expression  of  morbid  discontent   on  the   part  of  particular 
individuals,  from   which    no   age    is   ever   free,  but   which 
happens  to  strike  a  more  responsive  chord  to-day,  owing  to 
certain  conditions  of  social-economic  as  well  as  political  life. 
A  purely  theoretical   philosopher  of  history,  one  who  does 
not  allow  his  personal  inclinations  and   moods  to  warp  his 
judgment,  will  perhaps  regard  both  of  these  interpretations 
of  the  signs  of  the  times  as  too  extreme.    Undoubtedly,  he 
mi-ht  say,  for  example,  many  phenomena  may  be  observed 
in  the  life  of  the  present  which  remind  us  of  the  Roman 


THE  MODERN   CONCEPTION 


149 


Empire,  in  the  field  of  art  and  literature  as  well  as  in  the  field 
of  economic  and  political  activity  :  the  shallow,  empty-headed 
virtuosity  in  the  arts,  which  labors  to  satisfy  the  parvenu's 
craving  for  pomp,  the  romantic  love  of  the  ''  old  German," 
which  bears  such  a  curious  resemblance  to  the  Empire's 
romantic  mania  for  the  old  Roman ;  the  laborious  and  aim- 
less learned  research,  which  in  reality  cares  absolutely  noth- 
ing for  science  itself,  but  which  does  care  for  the  rewards 
offered  for  scientific  work ;  the  literature,  which  seems  to 
indicate  extreme  nervous  weakness  in  the  authors  as  well  as 
in  the  readers,  —  just  look  at  the  outside  of  our  books,  the 
covers  marked  with  inscriptions  running  in  all  directions  and 
showing  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  the  titles  hailing  the 
reader  with  exclamation  points  and  question  marks  ;  the 
luxury  and  the  proletarianism  of  the  great  cities ;  the  cen- 
tralization of  our  entire  life,  by  which  the  strength  and  indi- 
viduality of  culture  is  suppressed  ;  the  constantly  growing 
necessity  of  basing  the  existing  order,  which  cannot  always 
depend  upon  its  inner  purposiveness,  upon  political-military 
powers  ;  and  the  like. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  philosopher  of  history  might 
continue,  there  is  no  lack  of  vital  energy  or  of  important 
problems  to  occupy  the  future  life  of  the  civilized  nations  of 
Europe  in  the  most  worthy  manner.  Perhaps,  he  will  say, 
the  whole  phenomenon  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  passing  stage 
of  depression,  caused  by  the  prevailing  lack  of  universally 
recognized  hopes  and  ideals,  to  unite  the  hearts  of  all. 
Nations  like  individuals  are  kept  alive  by  hope  and  yearning, 
not  by  their  fulfilment ;  when  the  ideals  are  realized,  there 
comes  a  time  of  restless  seeking  for  a  new  goal.  And  it 
might  perhaps  be  shown  that  we  are  at  present  passing 
through  such  a  period.  The  German  people  particularly,  who 
seem  to  be  most  affected  by  the  feelings  mentioned,  have  had 
their  long  yearnings  satisfied  by  enormous  achievements: 
they  at  last  have  their  emperor  and  empire,  and  parliaments 


I- 1'  ■ 


In 


150 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  THILOSOPHY 


in  plenty ;  and  the  year  1870  has  at  least  freed  our  neighbors 
from  a  hated  regime,  from  Caesarism  and  popery.    Both  nations 
are   now   repeating  the  experience,   which   is   so    common, 
that  the  hope  was  more  beautiful  than  the  realization.     Thus 
our  philosopher  of   history  might  reason,  and  add  his  belief 
that  new  problems,  which  are  already  beginning  to  announce 
themselves,  will   awaken  new   feelings   of  power   and  love 
of  life  :   that  they  will  bring   more   justice  into   our  social 
institutions,  more    seriousness    and  truth,  more    substance 
and  beauty,  into  the  intellectual  life  even  of  the  masses,  and 
not  merely  of  the  masses.     Nay,  perhaps,  so  he  might  pro- 
ceed, we  must  regard  the  entire  previous  development  of  the 
modern  nations  as  having  been  merely  the  prelude  to  an  abso- 
lutely independent  modern  civilized  life ;  for  evidently  these 
nations,  if  we  consider  the  Middle  Ages  as  their  appren- 
ticeship and  school-days,  have  just  left  school,  or  rather 
have  not  even  yet  left  it  altogether,  for  do  not  all  of  those  who 
are  destined  for  the  higher  professions  still  go  through  the 
school  of  antiquity  ?     Hence,  if  the  period  of  senility  is  not  to 
come  immediately  after  the  period  of  boyhood  in  the  modern 
nations,  we   must   expect  that  their  emancipation,  which   is 
presumably  close  at  hand,  will  be   followed  by  the   period 
of  perfect  maturity.  —  A  proof,  however,  so  our  philosopher 
would  most  likely   add   in   conclusion,   that  will    bind  the 
intellect,  is  impossible   here  in  the  very  nature  of  things; 
nations  are  still  more  in  the   dark    concerning  the   future 
of   their   course  than    individuals.      A   little   piece   of    the 
traversed  road  is  faintly  illuminated  by  history,  and  a  dis- 
mal ray  perhaps  falls  upon  the  steps  immediately  before  us. 
But  soon  the   path   loses   itself  in  the  illimitable  darkness 
with  which  eternity  encompasses  the  present. 

Let  me  here  say  a  word  concerning  another  phenomenon, 
which  has  been  exciting  the  German  youth  of  the  most  recent 
years,  Nietzscheanism,  the  twin  brother  and  antipode  of  Schopen- 
hauerism.    The  ideas  by  which  Friederich  Nietzsche,  who  had 


, 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


151 


been  undergoing  a  constant  change  of  heart,  and  had  already 
passed  through  many  stages  of  thought,  first  attracted  the 
attention  of  wider  circles,  are  contained  in  his  latest  collections 
of  aphorisms  :  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  ;  On  the  Other  Side  of 
Good  and  Bad  ;  and  especially.  The  Genealogy  of  Morals  ;  to 
which  should  be  added  also  his  last  work :  The  Twilight  of 
IdoU^  or  How  to  Philosophize  with  the  Hammer}  The  preface 
of  this  last  little  treatise  bears  the  date  of  the  day  "  on  which  the 
first  book  of  the  transformation  of  all  values  (Die  Umwertung 
aller  Werte')  was  finished,"  evidently  to  announce  the  fact 
that  this  key-stone  of  his  work  marks  the  dawn  of  a  new 
world-era.  He  apparently  believes  that  the  birthday  of  this 
book  will  rival  in  importance  the  birthday  of  Christianity, 
which  inaugurated  the  first  transformation  of  all  values  in 
the  Occident;  that  the  transformation  which  once  began 
with  Jesus  will  be  cancelled  again  by  Nietzsche,  and  that 
a  new  evaluation  will  be  made  on  the  basis  of  a  naturalistic 
"  Tmmoralism "  with  individualistic-aristocratic  tendencies. 
Nietzsche  hates  morality ;  morality  invariably  seeks  to  thwart 
the  instincts  ;  on  the  plea  of  bringing  about  the  triumph  of 
reason,  it  endeavors  to  make  man  sick  and  weak,  in  order 
thus  to  tame  him  more  easily,  or,  as  we  say,  to  improve 
him.  In  Christianity,  he  says,  this  battle  against  the  instincts 
appears  in  its  most  exaggerated  form ;  its  morality  is  the 
morality  of  the  slave,  which  sprang  from  the  inveterate 
hatred  of  the  oppressed  Jewish  nation  against  the  victorious 
Romans,  the  morality  of  the  weak,  dependent,  wicked,  hence 
deceitful,  revengeful,  and  malicious  race,  rising  against  the 
morality  of  the  lords  (^Herrenmoral) ,  the  morality  of  the 
strong,  fearless,  brave,  upright,  high-minded,  noble  race. 
By  producing  Christianity  and  spreading  it  among  the 
nations,  Judaism  took  the  most  complete  revenge  imaginable 

1  [Also  sprach  Zarathustra  ;  Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Base ;  Zur  Genealogie  der  Moral  ; 
GOtzendammerung,  oder  wie  man  mit  dem  Hammer  philosophiert.  Translations 
editedbyA.  TiUe.  — Tb.] 


152 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


nut 


I    f: 


N'' 


upon  the  Romans :  it  poisoned  them  morally,  so  to  speak, 
compelled  them  in  turn  to  regard  the  strong,  healthy,  brave, 
and  proud  as  the  bad  ;  the  weak,  humble,  crushed,  and  sub- 
missive as  the  good,  with  whom  God  was  well  pleased.  The 
final  deliverance  of  the  Western  mind  from  this  infection,  — 
that  would  be  Nietzsche's  mission. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  criticise  these  thoughts  ;  aphor- 
isms cannot,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  examined  as  to 
their  objective  validity;  they  do  not  aim  to  give  an  exhaustive 
explanation  of  the  essence  of  the  subject,  but  to  view  it,  from 
some  standpoint  or  other,  in  a  startling  light, —  which,  of 
course,  does  not  hinder  us  from  looking  at  it  from  other  points 
of  view  in  a  different  light.     Had  not  this  thinker,  who  was 
endowed  with  such  brilliant,  but  dangerous  talents,  fallen  into 
utter  mental  darkness,  many  symptoms  of  which  are  especi- 
ally discernible  in  his  last  work,  he  would,  we  may  venture  to 
believe,  soon  have  followed  different  channels,  since  further 
exaggerations  along  the  lines  pursued  by  him  were  impossible. 
What  now,  we  might  ask,  becomes  of  the  superhuman  being 
(^Uherme7i8ch)y  after  he  has  exhausted  himself  in  thinking, 
and  has   realized  himself  ?     What  is   his   real  work  in  this 
world  ?     It  used  to  be  regarded  as  the  mission  of  heroes  and 
great  men   to  lead   their  brothers  to  light  and  life.      This 
new  superhuman  being  seems    to    despise   such  a  task ;  he 
holds  himself  aloof  from  the  masses  and  considers  himself 
superior  to  them,  he   will   have   nothing  to   do   with  these 
worthless  creatures,  who  simply  exist  to  make  him  possible. 
But  how  does   he   spend    his   time?     Does    he  contemplate 
himself,  write  aphorisms,  and  marvel  at  the  distance  between 
himself  and  the  masses  ?     Is  that  all  he   can   find   to  do  ? 
That  would  be  rather  trivial  for  a  superhuman  being ;  and  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  the  philosopher  himself  would  soon 
have  shuddered  at  the  emptiness  of  such  an  existence.     And 
then,  perhaps,  he  might  have  understood  the  littleness  of  his 
anti-Christ  as  compared  with  the  Christ,  in  whom  there  was 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


153 


surely  something  more  of  the  truly  superhuman  element  than 
in  this  swaggering  despiser  of  humanity  and  self-conceited 
boaster.^ 

However,  let  all  that  be  as  it  may.  The  question  that  in- 
terests us  is.  What  do  these  ideas  signify  as  a  sign  of  the 
times  ?  What  makes  the  Ubermensch  so  attractive  to  the 
young?  Nietzsche  has  become  a  staple  article  in  the  peri- 
odicals and  newspapers;  on  the  application-blanks  of  our 
public  libraries  the  name  of  Nietzsche  occurs  more  frequently , 
perhaps,  than  any  other ;  yes,  I  have  been  told  by  teachers  in 
the  gymnasium  that  traces  of  Nietzsche's  spirit  and  writings 
may  occasionally  be  found  in  the  German  compositions  of 
their  pupils,  by  no  means  of  the  least  talented  among  them. 
What  draws  them  to  Nietzsche  ?  Is  it  his  impressive  style  ? 
Is  it  his  dazzling,  blending,  lightning-like,  instantaneous  illu- 
mination of  things  ?  Or  is  it  the  fact  that  all  the  old  truths 
have  come  to  be  regarded  as  trite  by  our  youth,  and  that 
they  are  insanely  fond   of  the  most  unheard-of  paradoxes  ? 

1  An  article  bj  Gallwitz  has  just  fallen  into  my  hands :  Nietzsche  as  a  Prepa- 
ration for  Christianity    (Nietzsche   als    Erzieher  zum    Christentum)    (Preussische 
Jahrbiicher,  February,  1896).     The  author  admirably  shows  how  far  Nietzsche 
misses  the  mark,  when  he  absolutely  opposes  his  ideal  of  life  to  that  of  Jesus. 
There  is  a  far-reaching  formal  agreement  between  them.     The  "  gregarious  im- 
pulse *'  may  frequently  play  a  prominent  part  in  the  churches  which  call  them- 
selves Christian ;  no  one  who  is  acquainted  with  them  will  look  for  it  in  Jesus 
and   his  first  disciples;  on  the  contrary,  primitive  Christianity  is  really  char- 
acterized by  its   extremely  independent    attitude    towards  the    established  and 
prevailing  opinions  and  customs,  and  even  towards   conventional  values  and 
standards.     Nor  is  it  inclined  to  overestimate  morals  and  morality ;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  really  important  thing  is,  to  use  Nietzsche's  words,  "  moralinfreie  " 
[moralin-less  ?]  virtue ;   legality,  has  no  value ;  as  the  son  of  God,  as  the  free 
child  of  the  Father,  the  Son  of  Man  knows  that  he  is  superior  to  the  law. 
And  Nietzsche  could  also  have  found  in  Jesus  and  his  teaching  the  truth  that 
to  rise  above  the  world  of  sense  and  desire  is  the  fundamental  characteristic  of 
perfection.    One  thing,  to  be  sure,  he  would  not  have  been  able  to  find  there : 
self-adoration,  haughtiness  towards  the  people,  contempt  for  the  masses.    These 
qualities  he  would  have  been  more  likely  to  find  among  the  Pharisees.    He  found 
them  in  Schopenhauer,  not  in  Schopenhauer  the  thinker,  but  in  Schopenhauer 
the  man.    And  he  always  remained  a  true  follower  of  Schopenhauer  the  man, 
even  after  he  had  repudiated  the  latter's  philosophy. 


154 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


I  :  !■ 


Ml 


lii  ■ 


The  young  always  have  a  predilection  for  the  new  and  un- 
heard-of ;  it  has  at  least  the  merit  of  being  opposed  to  the 
old  and  established  forms,  under  the  weight  of  which  we 
are  groaning,  to  the  trivial  truths  of  the  Sunday  School  class, 
the  trivial  truths  of  morals,  and  those  upon  which  candidates 
for  degrees   are   examined.     Socrates  the  first  Greek  deca- 
dent ;  Kant  a  deformed,  intellectual  cripple ;  a  good  conscience 
the  result  of  a  good   digestion;  morality  the  castration   of 
nature   by   decadence-philosophers  —  indeed  this    is   saying 
something,  something  different  from  the  old,  tiresome  stories 
which  have  been  heard  and  repeated  ad  nauseam.     Are  these 
paradoxes  intoxicating  our  young  men,  who  have  grown  tired 
of  the  everlasting  disciplining  and  examining  ?    Are  we  like 
the  Athenians,  can  we  no  longer  bear  the  customary,  and  have 
we  therefore  become  the  slaves  of  every  newest  fad?i     Or 
has  the  biting  sarcasm  with  which  all  the  old  heroes  and 
time-honored  truths  are  cast  aside,  a  pleasant  ring  in  the 
ears  of  an  age  that  has  been  filled  with  distrust  of  all  estab- 
lished institutions  by  the  din  of  the  penny-a-liners  and  the 
officiousness  of  the  busybodies  who  are  for  stifling  truth? 
Or  is  it  the  obscure  prophecy  of  something  new  and  great 
that  is  to  come  that  is  making  an  impression?    Perhaps 
something  of  all  of  this.     And  the  final  and  deepest  reason 
is  perhaps  the  one  to  which  we  alluded  before :  the  lack  of 
an  ideal,  of  a  ruling  ideal,  an  ideal  to   elevate  the  hearts, 
to  inspire  the  will,  and  to  give  the  multitude  a  common  aim. 
Hence  the  impatient  unrest  of  the  times,  the  feverish  searching 
and  groping  after  something  great  and  unusual,  after  a  guide 
to  new  and  higher  forms  of  life.     What  was  it  that  attracted 
so  many  readers  to  Eembrandt  as  an  Educator^  if  not  the 
promise  to  show  the  helpless  an  ideal,  an  ideal  of  a  freer, 
richer,  greater  German  life  ?     What  is  it  that  gains  credu- 
lous hearers  and  adherents  for  the  other  prophets,  who  spring 

1  £^ov\oi  6vr€s  r5>v  del  dT(Jir«v,  ^€p6Trai  8i  t«v  «la>$6r(»y,  so  Cleon  calls  the 
Athenians,  in  Thucydides,  III.,  38. 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


155 


I  tv 


\l 


up  in  a  single  night  and  preach  to  the  German  people  in 
popular  meetings  and  pamphlets,  but  the  deep  and  universal 
longing  to  learn  something  of  the  path  which  we  now  ought 
to  follow  ?  What  else  is  it  that  is  gathering  around  the 
name  of  Paul  de  Lagarde  a  little  community  of  reverent 
admirers  ?  To  point  out  to  the  German  people  new  goals 
and  new  ideals :  that  is  the  ultimate  purpose  of  his  G-erman 
Writings^  which  contain,  besides  much  that  is  strange  and 
harsh,  so  much  more  that  is  good  and  great. 

If  it  is  this,  the  hunger  for  an  ideal,  that  brings  forth  all 
these  phenomena,  then  they  are  not  —  however  much  there 
may  be  in  them  that  is  unsatisfactory  —  symptoms  of  decline, 
but  symptoms  of  the  unrest  which  precedes  the  birth  of  a 
new  age.  In  that  case  the  struggle  of  art  and  poetry  for  new 
forms  and  a  new  content  will  also  have  to  be  interpreted  as  a 
struggle  of  the  new  ideal  to  reveal  itself. 

The  young  men  engaged  in  this  struggle  do  not  like  to 
be  referred  to  the  past :  their  faces  are  turned  to  the  future. 
Nevertheless,  I  should  like  to  ask  the  disciple  of  Nietzsche  to 
peruse  with  care  the  first  book  of  the  Platonic  Republic. 
He  will  meet  in  it  a  man  who  with  great  confidence  and 
self-conceit  teaches  the  doctrine  that  injustice,  when  on  a 
sufficient  scale,  has  more  strength  and  freedom  and  mastery 
than  justice ;  perhaps  he  will  be  tempted  to  read  on  in  this 
remarkable,  so  old  and  yet  so  modern  book.  And  then,  per- 
haps, he  may  also  be  induced  to  re-read  his  Goethe,  the 
second  part  of  Faust,  the  scene  between  Mephistopheles  and 
the  Baccalaureus,  in  which  the  eternal  theme  of  the  old  men 
and  the  young  men  is  so  wonderfully  worked  out. 

11.  I  cannot  close  this  discussion  on  the  modern  conception 
of  life,  without  directly  adverting  to  a  question  which  has 
already  been  partly  answered,  —  the  question  concerning  the 
modern  spirit  in  its  relation  to  Christianity. 

If  we  employ  the  name  Christianity  solely  to  designate  a 
mode  of  life  and  feeling,  a  belief  and  conviction,  absolutely 


156 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


lU  •' 


resembling  that  of  the  first  Christian  communities,  then  we 
cannot  call  our  modern  life  Christian.  To  abstain  from  the 
world,  to  shrink  from  civilization,  to  turn  to  the  Beyond: 
these  are  the  characteristic  traits  of  old  Christianity  ;  no  one 
will  regard  them  as  characteristic  of  the  modern  period  of 

history. 

But  if  we  do  not  take  Christianity  in  this  its  narrowest 
sense,  if  we  apply  the  term  to  the  entire  historical  movement 
which  begins  with  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  —  and  that  too 
we  have  a  good  historical  right  to  do  —  then  the  case  is  dif- 
ferent.    Then  we  shall  have  to  confess,  whether  we  like  it  or 
not,  that  the   modern   era  is   still  so  greatly  dominated  by 
Christianity  that  its  history  can  and  must  be  regarded  as  a 
part  of  the  history  of  Christianity.     David  Strauss  propounds 
the  question  in  his  Old  and  New  Faith  :  ^  Are  we  Christians  ? 
He  answers  it  in  the  negative,  and  shows  that  the  old  creed 
no  longer  expresses  the  prevailing  convictions  of  the  modern 
times.     Herein  he  is  undoubtedly  right.     Does  it  not  follow, 
then,  that  we   are  no  longer  Christians  ?     Certainly,   if   the 
creed  has  the  force  of  a  definition,  excluding  every  one  from 
Christianity  whose  belief  it  does  not  express,— which  was 
indeed  its  original  purpose.     But  the  inference   would   be 
misleading  if   we   were   to  conclude   further:    hence  Chris- 
tianity has  become  extinct.     In  answer  to  this   proposition 
we  should  have  to  say :  Christianity  is  older  than  the  creeds 
and  is  most  likely  destined  to  outlive  them ;  it  has  become  a 
reality  in  the  historical  life  of  the  European  nations,  and  can 
never  again  become   unreal ;  it   can  only  perish  with  these 
nations  themselves.     It  has  helped  to  fashion  the  will  and 
the  heart  of  these  nations  into  what  they  are,  and  has  left  its 
mark  indelibly  impressed  upon  their  character.     Even  those 
who  feel  decidedly  opposed  to  Christianity  cannot  escape  its 
influence ;  it  continues  to  determine  their  thoughts,  feelmgs, 
and  volitions. 

1  Der  alte  und  neue  Glaube,  translated  by  M.  Blind. 


THE  MODERN   CONCEPTION 


157 


The  influence  of  Christianity  upon  the  life  and  morals  of 
the  nations  which,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  were  being  pre- 
pared for  their  future  mission  within  the  bosom  of  the  church, 
has  already  been  slightly  touched  upon  above  (page  123) ;  I 
do  not  wish  to  recur  to  it.^  Here,  however,  I  should  like  to 
call  attention  to  some  traits  in  our  mode  of  feeling  and  our 
conception  of  life  which  have  their  origin  in  Christianity. 

Three  great  truths  Christianity  has  engraven  upon  the  hearts 
of  men. 

The  first  is :  Suffering  is  an  essential  phase  of  human  life. 
This  truth  really  escaped  the  Greeks.  They  were  familiar  with 
suffering,  but  only  as  a  fact  which  ought  not  to  be.  Their 
philosophers,  at  least,  never  got  beyond  this  view;  although 
the  tragic  poets  divined  its  deeper  meaning.  Christianity  has 
taught  us  to  appreciate  suffering ;  suffering  is  not  merely 
a  brutal  fact,  but  essential  to  the  perfect  development  of  the 
inner  man  :  suffering  withdraws  the  soul  from  too  complete 
devotion  to  the  temporal  and  perishable ;  it  is  the  antidote  to 
vanity  and  the  love  of  show ;  it  is,  in  Christian  phrase,  the 
great  means  of  education  by  which  God  turns  our  hearts 
from  the  earthly  and  temporal  upwards,  to  the  eternal,  to 
Himself.  And  so  suffering  leads  to  inner  peace.  Whoever  is 
familiar  with  suffering  will  understand  the  significance  of 

1  Let  me  refer  the  reader  to  a  work  that  shows  the  enormous  power  which 
Christian  charity  has  exercised  and  continues  to  exercise  even  in  our  days,  the 
admirable  work  of  Uhlhorn,  Histori/  of  Christian  Benevolence  {Geschichte  der 
christlichen  Liebesthatigkeit).  The  third  volume  takes  up  the  period  from  the 
Reformation  to  the  present.  It  shows  how  many  deeds  of  charity,  not  only 
money-offerings,  but  also  personal  ministrations,  have  been  performed,  especially 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  like  of  which  has  j>erhaps  never  been  seen  since 
the  days  of  primitive  Christianity ;  the  Protestant  world  particularly,  which,  for 
a  long  time,  has  been  somewhat  behindhand  in  this  respect,  is  now  rivalling  the 
Catholic  church.  —  May  we  not  see  in  the  impartiality  with  which  the  work  of 
both  churches  is  here  described  a  sign  that  the  time  will  come  again  when  they 
will  respect  and  esteem  each  other  as  different  forms  of  pure  Christianity  ? 
Protestantism  undoubtedly  finds  less  difficulty  in  making  this  acknowledgment 
than  Catholicism  ;  should  it  ever  meet  with  a  sympathetic  response  from  the 
Catholic  church,  then  only  will  the  former  defection,  which  caused  so  much 
bloodshed  and  suffering  among  the  German  people,  be  wholly  justified. 


158 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


159 


1 '     ' 
1 


m 


Christianity.  Wherever  sorrows  are  borne,  a  craving  and 
seeking  for  Christianity  usually  soon  manifests  itself  ;  a 
healthy,  vigorous,  and  active  life  is  more  apt  to  cling  to  the 
Greek  conception  of  life.  But,  inasmuch  as  no  life  is  wholly 
free  from  suffering,  there  will  be  times  in  every  life  when  the 
heart  is  susceptible  to  the  influences  of  Christianity. 

The  second  great  truth  which  Christianity  has  impressed 
upon  humanity   is  this :    Sin  and  guilt   are  essential  phases 
of  human  life.    This  truth,  too,  the  Greeks  did  not  see,  or  at 
least  not  in  its  entire  force.    They  were  familiar  with  the  ugly 
and  the  base ;  their  comic  poets  ridicule  tliese,  and  their  philos- 
ophers show  how  men  err  with  respect  to  the  highest  good,  and 
how  they  miss  the  right  road  to  happiness.     For  Christianity 
it  is  the  most  serious  and  most  awful  truth  that  the  incli- 
nation to  evil  is  deeply  rooted  in  the  essence  of  the  natural 
man.     Theology  has  formulated  this  conception  in  the  doc- 
trine of  original  sin,  whether  happily  or  not  need  not  con- 
cern us  here  ;  but  it  is  an  undoubted  truth  that  human  nature 
contains,  besides  beautiful  and  good  capacities  and  impulses, 
inclinations  which  justify  the  harsh  remark  that  man  is  the 
wicked  animal,  V animal  mechant,  par  excellence.     Man  is  born 
with  two  venomous  teeth  which  are  wanting  in  the  other  ani- 
mals :  they  are  called  envy  and  malice.    The  Greeks,  too,  were 
skilled   in  their  use,  as   the  horrible  picture  proves  which 
Thucydides  gives  of  the  self-laceration  of  this  nation.     But 
with  the  exception  of  particular  personalities  like  Thucydides 
and  Plato,  the  ancients  were  not  conscious  of  the  awfulness 
of  the  thing;  it  did  not  seem  to  be  incompatible  with  their 
demands  upon  human  nature.     Christianity  has  raised  the 
standard;  it  measures  man  by  the  justice  and  holiness  of 
God,  which  have  become  incarnate  in  Jesus.     This  way  of 
feeling,  too,  has  been  indelibly  impressed  upon  us.      It  is 
impossible  for  us  to  accept  evil  as  complacently  as  did  the 
Greeks,  to  contemplate  our  lives  with  such  self-satisfaction  as 
was  possible  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans.     Occasionally,  at 


some  neo-humanistic  funeral,  the  Horatian  Integer  vitce  sceler- 
isque  purus,  is  sung ;  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  song 
would  sound  oppressive  to  the  dead  man,  if  he  could  hear  it ; 
perhaps  it  would  remind  him  of  the  beginning  of  that  prayer 
of  the  Pharisee  :  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other 
men  are,  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers,  or  even  as  this  pub- 
can  !  And  would  the  concluding  lines  of  the  song  about  the 
sweetly  laughing  Lalage  be  likely  to  have  a  pleasant  ring  in 
his  ears  at  such  a  time  ?  Perhaps  the  old  Good  Friday  hymn 
would  be  more  to  his  taste  :  "  0  Christ,  thou  lamb  of  God, 
thou  who  bearest  the  sins  of  this  world,  have  mercy  upon 
us."  The  proud  words  of  the  dying  Julian  —  "I  die  without 
remorse,  as  I  have  lived  without  sin  "  —  we  too  might  possibly 
utter  before  an  earthly  tribunal,  but  can  we  utter  them  before 
the  tribunal  of  our  own  conscience,  before  the  tribunal  of 
God? 

The  third  great  truth  which  Christianity  has  impressed  . 
upon  us  is  :  The  world  lives  hy  the  vicarious  death  of  the  just  I 
and  innocent  Whatever  system-loving  theology  may  have 
made  of  it,  it  remains  the  profoundest  philosophical-historical 
truth.  The  nations  owe  their  existence  to  the  willingness  of 
the  best  and  the  most  unselfish,  the  strongest  and  the  purest, 
to  offer  themselves  for  sacrifice.  Whatever  humanity  pos- 
sesses of  the  highest  good  has  been  achieved  by  such  men, 
and  their  reward  has  been  misunderstanding,  contempt,  exile, 
and  death.  The  history  of  humanity  is  the  history  of  martyr- 
dom ;  the  text  to  the  sermon  which  is  called  the  history  of 
mankind  is  the  text  to  the  Good  Friday  sermon  from  the 
fifty-third  chapter  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah.  According  to  an 
old  legend,  an  innocent  life  must  be  walled  up  in  the  founda- 
tions of  a  building  if  it  is  to  endure.  This  belief  might  have 
been  taken  from  history ;  history,  too,  immures  innocent  lives 
in  the  foundations  of  its  structures.  Among  the  institutions 
of  the  Western  world,  the  church  has  thus  far  proved  to  be  the 
most  enduring;  its  foundation  is  laid  in  the  vicarious  death  of 


/ 


160 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


161 


;:^ 


lH.''l 


hs'i 


Christ ;  for  which  reason  the  old  church  followed  the  sugges- 
tive custom  of  placing  the  symbol  of  the  eternal  sacrifice  in 
the  centre  of  the  religious  church  life.  —  The  question  has 
often  been  debated :  What  is  the  secret  of  the  power  of  the 
Catholic  church,  which  has  often  been  reported  dead  and 
regarded  as  dead  ?  The  superstition  and  ignorance  of  the 
masses  ?  Their  childish  fear  of  things  which  do  not  exist  ? 
Or  the  firmness  of  the  church  organization?  The  prudence 
of  its  leaders  ?  The  support  which  it  receives  from  the  lords 
of  this  earth?  Perhaps  all  of  these  contribute  something, 
although  we  might  also  say  these  are  the  very  things  which 
more  than  once  brought  the  church  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  The 
real  secret  most  likely  is  that  men  and  women  have  always 
found  in  it  the  strength  to  sacrifice  their  lives.  Even  though 
their  number  was  not  great,  yet  so  precious  and  effective  is 
sacrifice  that  it  has  been  able  to  counteract  the  debasing  and 
pernicious  influence  of  the  many  who  used  the  church  as  a 
means  of  good  living.  —  Protestantism,  too,  owes  what  living 
force  it  possesses  to  this  fact.  And  so  it  will  also  be  in  the 
future.  Christianity  will  not  be  preserved  by  privy  counsel- 
lors  and  professors,  it  can  only  be  preserved  by  those  who  are 
ready  to  work,  to  suffer,  and  to  die  for  it. 

That  is  the  eternal  meaning  of  the  belief  in  the  divinity  of 
Jesus.  Paganism  endows  its  gods  with  happiness,  beauty, 
splendor,  and  honor ;  the  kings  and  lords  of  the  earth  are 
most  like  them.  Christianity  recognizes  God  in  the  form  of 
the  lowliest  of  all  the  children  of  men ;  He  was  the  most 
despised  and  most  unworthy  among  them,  full  of  suffering 
and  sickness.  This  form  God  chose  when  he  became  flesh. 
Whoever  wishes  to  imagine  God  as  man,  says  the  Christian 
faith,  let  him  not  think  of  the  victor  on  the  field  of  battle, 
of  the  king  in  his  purple,  of  a  wise  and  honored  man  whom 
every  one  admires,  but  let  him  picture  to  himself  a  man  who 
suffers  everything  and  endures  everything,  who  bears  the  sin 
of  the  whole  race  upon  his  shoulders,  and  who  remains  con- 


stant in  all  his  sufferings,  who  exhibits  infinite  patience  and 
kindness,  who  turns   even  upon  his   tormentors   a  look  of 
infinite  love  and  pity.     That  is  the  picture  of   the  all-good 
in  human  form,  that  is  God  himself.     "  To  be  good  is  to  do 
good,  and  to  suffer  evil,  and  to  persevere  therein  to  the  end." 
Joined  with  these  three  elements  is  a  fourth  :  the  longing 
for  the  transcendent.     Antiquity  was  satisfied  with  the  earth ; 
the  modern  era  has  never  been  wholly  free  from  the  feeling 
that  the  given  reality  is  inadequate.     Something  of  the  mood 
which  Christianity  introduced  into  the  Occident  —  the  feeling 
that  the  real  home  of  the  soul  is  not  on  earth,  that  this  life  is 
a  pilgrimage  in  a  foreign  land — constantly  confronts  us  in  the 
poetry  and  in  the  life  of  the  modern  age,  and  not  only  among 
those  who  accept  the  teachings  of  primitive  Christianity,  but 
also  among  the  children    of  the  world.    There  are  people 
who    believe   that    the  time    for  transcendent   religion    has 
passed,  that  a  religion  of  morality  will  take  its  place.     I  do  not 
believe  tliat  the  future  will  bear  them  out.    The  old  theoloff- 
ical  metaphysic  of  the  dogma  may  indeed  pass  away,  and  I 
fondly  hope  with  the  friends  of  ethical  culture  that  religious 
living  will  more  and  more  take  the  place  of  religious  believ- 
ing ;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Western  nations  will  ever 
be  wholly  free  from  the  need  of  creating,  with  prophetic  long- 
ing, a  reality  of  a  higher  order  beyond  the  given  world.     Even 
for  a  man  like  Goethe,  who  stands  firmly  upon  the  earth  and 
joyfully  appropriates  it  with  his  entire  being,  it  has  always 
been  the  deepest  yearning  of  his  heart  to  gaze  into  a  bound- 
less, purer  realm,  in  which  everytliing  that  the  hazy  atmo- 
sphere of  our  narrow  earthly  existence  encompasses  dissolves 
and  vanishes. 

After  all  this,  we  may  say  :  Tlie  mixture,  antagonism,  and 
reconciliation  of  Christian  and  Greek  elements  is  character- 
istic of  the  modern  conception  of  life  and  the  world.  There 
are  times  when  t)ie  former,  and  there  are  times  when  the 

latter,  preponderates ;  the  time  for  which  Paul  Gerhardt  sang 

11 


■ 


"  t- 


¥i 


162  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

felt  otherwise  than  the  age  of  enlightenment,  and  the  genera- 
tion for  which  Wilhelm  Meister  and  the  Eoman  Elegies  were 
written.     But  even  here  hearts  have  never  been  wanting  that 
have  sought  and   found   consolation   and   deliverance  from 
earthly  so°rrow  in  the  harsh  sublimity  of  the  church  hymns. 
And  not  only  do  these  contrasts  exist  together  in  the  same 
age :  they  also  exist  together  in  the  same  heart.     Friederich 
Lange,  the  author  of  the  History  of  Materialism,  who  was  a 
thorough-going  disciple  of  the  modern  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse Tnd  life,  once,  so  we  are  told  in  his  biography ,i  had  a 
conversation  with  the   philosopher  tjberweg  concerning  the 
future    of   religion  or  the   religion   of    the    future.     Lauge 
demanded  that  there  be  added  to  the  cheerful  modern  build- 
ing in  the  Greelc  temple  style,  at  least  a  Gothic  chapel  for 
troubled  hearts,  and  to  the  national  worship  certain  festivals, 
during  which  the  happy  mortal,  too,  might  learn  to  plunge  in- 
to the  abyss  of  misery  and  again  find  that  he  was  as  needy  of 
salvation  as  the  unhappy  and  even  the  wicked.    In  our  modern 
Christianity  misery  and  contrition  are  the  rule,  the  feelmg  of 
cheerful  exaltation  and  the  joy  of  victory  the  exception :  he 
desired  to  reverse  this  order,  but  "  not  to  ignore  the  gloomy 
shadow  which,  after  all,  accompanies  our  entire  life."     The 
church    hymns,   too,    he    wished    to    adopt   into    the    new 
worship ;  and  to  tTberweg's  protesting  question :  «  Which  one, 
for  example?"  he  at  once  replied:   0  Haupt  voll  Blut  und 

Wunden. 

It  seems  to  me,  we  may  regard  Lange  as  a  typical  repre- 
sentative of  the  modern  man  in  his  attitude  to  the  opposition 
between  Hellenism  and  Christianity,  as  a  more  typical  repre- 
sentative than  the  somewhat  one-sided  Uberweg,  who  mcl.ncs 
to  a  harsh  logical  dogmatism.  For  the  intellectually-trained 
logician  the  differences  are  irreconcilable,  and  he  sees  in  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  them  a  lack  of  consistency ;  the  psycholo- 
gist and  sociologist,  to  whom  nothing  human  is  alien,  sees  the 

1  By  Ellison,  214. 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


163 


predisposition  to  both  tendencies  in  the  human  soul,  and  ex- 
periences them  himself  in  his  own  heart. 

Indeed,  if  man  were  a  purely  logical  being,  then  he  woi  Id 
have  to  draw  the  line  sharply  between  these  extremes ;  the 
affirmation  and  the  negation  of  this  earthly  life,  Hellenic  love 
of  life  and  Christian  yearning  for  deliverance  from  all  that 
is  transitory,  would  be  regarded  by  him  as  contradictory 
opposites,  between  which  there  can  be  no  middle  ground. 
But  man  is  not  mere  intelligence,  his  inner  life'  is  not  a  logi- 
cal mechanism  which  rejects  everything  contradictory ;  he  is 
also  and  primarily  a  willing  and  feeling  being,  a  being  that 
experiences  pleasure  and  pain,  hope  and  fear,  love  and  hate, 
admiration  and  contempt.  The  judgments,  too,  which  he  pro- 
nounces as  such  a  being  he  endeavors  to  comprehend  into  a 
system ;  thus  arise  the  different  conceptions  of  life,  and  the 
interpretations  of  the  world  based  upon  them,  the  religious 
systems.  The  greatest  opposition  which  exists  between  them 
is  that  obtaining  between  culture-religions,  or  world-affirm- 
ing religions,  and  religions  of  redemption.  But  extremes 
do  not  exclude  each  other  here  as  in  scientific  systems.  In 
cosmology  one  accepts  either  the  Ptolemaic  or  the  Coper- 
nican  system.  When,  however,  we  deal  with  systems  of 
world-conceptions  and  life-conceptions,  which  have  their  deep- 
est roots  in  feeling,  the  case  is  different ;  here  the  lines  are 
not  so  sharply  drawn,  there  is  more  inconsistency,  mixture, 
approximation,  —  nay  these  are  in  a  certain  sense  natural 
and  necessary. 

Every  man  experiences  the  great  extremes  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  health  and  sickness,  youth  and  old  age,  life  and  death  ; 
he  suffers  good  and  evil  from  men,  he  arouses  and  feels  love 
and  hatred,  trust  and  distrust,  admiration  and  contempt. 
No  one,  therefore,  is  absolutely  unfamiliar  with  the  ex- 
tremes of  happiness  and  worldly  joy,  and  disappointment, 
disgust,  world-weariness,  and  satiety  of  life.  Inasmuch  as 
every  mood  is  absolute  while  it  lasts,  and  steeps  the  whole 


164 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


world  and  all  life  in  its  color,  we  may  say  that  the  tendency 
is  temporarily  present  in  every  man  to  produce  these  two 
systems,  the  optimistic  and  the  pessimistic.     Every  one  has 
in  his  own  experiences,  the  fundamental  conditions  at  least 
for  understanding  both  systems.     It  will   depend   upon  his 
temperament  and  his  experiences,  which  of  them  will  gain 
the  supremacy,  and  finally  become  habitual  with  him.     But 
in  some  form  or  other  both  will  be  present ;  in  some  form 
or  other  he  will  employ  them  both  to   universalize  his  tem- 
porary mood.     To  men  like  Goethe  and  Wilhelm  von  Hum- 
boldt, who  were  able  beautifully  to  develop  and  happily  to 
exercise  healthy  and  remarkable  natural  powers,  under  happy 
and  appropriate  conditions,  the  Hellenic  conception  of  life,  a 
worldly  optimism,  was  becoming  and  natural.     But  moments 
were  not  wanting  even  in  Goethe's  life  when  he  entertained 
other  feelings  towards  Christianity  than  aversion  to  the  cross, 
for  did  he  not  once  call  Saint  Filipo  Neri  his  saint  ?    And 
perhaps  Humboldt  was  not  always  in  the  mood  which  once 
prompted  him  to  write  that  even  in  the  hour  of  death  a  few 
verses  from  Homer,  even  though  they  be  taken  from  the  cata- 
logue of  ships,  would  be  more  consoling  and  elevating  than 
anything   in   the   world.      On   the   other  hand,   whoever   is 
endowed  with  a  gloomy  temperament  and  has  suffered  great 
misfortunes,  whoever  has  been  disappointed  and  ill-treated 
by   men,  whoever  has   erred   much   and    sinned    much,   or 
perhaps  looks  back  upon  a  wrecked  life,  will  be  more  in- 
clined   to    seek    and    find   rest   in   a   view  that  absolutely 
repudiates  this  temporal  life,  and  looks  forward  to  deliver- 
ance  and  the  hereafter ;   Hamann  and   Schopenhauer  were 
natures  of  this  kind.     But  their  lives,  too,  were  not  devoid 
of  experiences  which  enabled  them  to  appreciate  the  Hellenic 
conception  of  the  universe.     In  the  representations  of  art  at 
least,  Schopenhauer   contemplates  reality  with  pleasure  and 
love. 

Moreover,  the  same  mixture  of  opposites  is  not  wanting  in 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


165 


the  earlier  civilizations.  The  Greeks,  too,  were  not  unfamiliar 
with  the  feeling  of  the  transitoriness  and  nothingness  of  the 
earthly.  How  often  the  feeling  of  world-sorrow  and  weari- 
ness of  life  strikes  a  responsive  chord  in  their  poetry,  in 
Homer,  in  the  tragic  poets!  And  so,  conversely,  a  naive 
love  of  nature  is  not  wanting  in  the  Gospels ;  Jesus  in  the 
parables  lovingly  contemplates  the  life  of  nature ;  and  with 
what  love  and  pleasure  his  gaze  rests  upon  the  children  ! 
And  Saint  Augustine  surely  did  not  always  think,  in  his 
direct  daily  intercourse  with  men,  of  the  system  according 
to  which  the  natural  virtues  are  splendid  vices. 

We  shall  therefore  have  to  say,  the  systems  of  ethical  nat- 
uralism  and  supranaturalism,  carried  out  consistently,  are 
logical  schemes,  that  do  not,  like  natural-historical  defini- 
tions, directly  express  the  life,  thoughts,  and  feelings  of  the 
actual  man.  They  mark  a  relation  of  the  soul  to  reality  as 
it  would  be  if  certain  experiences  and  moods  were  the  only 
ones.  The  real  life  oscillates  between  extreme  moods,  and 
the  judgment  on  life  and  reality  correspondingly  wavers  be- 
tween these  extreme  formulae.  This  is  true  of  the  life  of  indi- 
viduals as  well  as  of  the  life  of  nations  and  times.  The 
theoretical  value  of  such  conceptual  schemes  consists  in  this, 
that  they  are  an  indirect  means  of  understanding  and  deter- 
mining reality.  They  have  the  significance  of  artificial  lines, 
of  co-ordinate  axes,  by  which  we  may  determine  for  the  infinite 
variety  of  living  forms  their  place  in  the  historical -moral  world. 
It  is  the  same  here  as  with  the  definitions  of  the  temperaments 
or  the  forms  of  the  state,  which  do  not,  as  we  know,  immedi- 
ately express  or  describe  the  concrete  reality,  but  serve,  as 
logical  schemes,  indirectly  to  comprehend  and  describe  it. 

More  important  than  the  theoretical  value  of  these  schemes 
is  the  practical  value  of  the  two  great  forms  of  life  and  their 
self-expression  in  poetry  and  art.  They  supply  the  modern 
nations  with  the  spiritual  forms  for  the  great  modes  and 
moods  of  life.     In  the  history  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  life  of  the 


166 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


saints,  the  sister  of  charity  finds  the  models  which  elevate 
and   strengthen  her  in  her  calling ;  from  the  songs  of  Paul 
Gerhardt  the  sick  and  troubled  soul  derives  consolation  and 
comfort.     I  wonder  how  a  Greek  consoled  himself  when  he 
was  sick  and  weak.     Or  were  the  Greeks  never  sick  ?     And, 
conversely,  in  the  great  figures  of  Greek  and  Roman  history, 
in  the  vigorous  eloquence    of  Demosthenes,  the  Germans 
sought  and  found  the  means  to   revive  the  courage   of   a 
vanquished  people,  and  to  direct  it  towards  the  goal  of  free- 
dom  and  greatness.     And  so  even  now  the  poems  of  Homer 
may  inculcate  in  the  souls  of  our  boys  the  first  examples  of 
youthful  love  of  honor  and  prudence,  manly  vigor  and  dig- 
nity.    The  advantage  of  this  long  and  varied  preliminary  his- 
tory  is  that  it  offers  us  clearly  defined  conceptions,  according 
to  our  different  natures  and  talents,  our  different  fortunes 
and  life-experiences.      And  we  are  therefore  unquestionably 
justified  in   introducing   our  young  men   to  both  worlds,  to 
that   of   antiquity  and  that   of   Christianity,  not   merely  in 
order  to  give  them  historical  knowledge,  but  to  enable  them 
to  contemplate  the  different  lots  of  life,  so  that  each  one  may 
prudently  select  that  which  is  fitting  for  him.     But  for  that 
very  reason  we  should  not  obliterate  and  dull  the  opposition 
between  those  great  historical  forms  of  life,  but  should  clearly 
define  it.     Each  of  them  can  supply  us  with  figures  of  inner 
greatness  and  perfection,  which,  as  typical   examples,  will 
forever  preserve  their  power  of  attraction. 

So  much  for  the  subjective  compatibility  of  the  two  types  of 
a  perfect  life.  It  is  really  possible  to  admire  Saint  Francis 
and  at  the  same  time  to  feel  a  hearty  and  grateful  sympathy 
with  a  nature  like  Goethe's,  however  far  apart  their  ideals  of 
life  may  be,  objectively  considered.  Only  we  must  not  desire 
to  canonize  Goethe  or  look  for  philosophy  and  culture  in  the 
saint, —  rather  we  should  see  the  positive  elements  in  both. 
Yes,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  say  that  a  world  composed  of 
nothing  but  holy  beggars  would  be  as  tiresome  as  it  is  impos- 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION 


167 


sible ;  the  saints  need  the  children  of  the  world  as  a  foil  to 
set  them  off. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  a  word  concerning  an  objective 
approximation,  which  becomes  apparent  when  we  compare 
the  two  types  with  a  third,  to  which  they  are  both  opposed. 

We  may  distinguish  between  three  conceptions  of  a  good 
life,  and  accordingly  between  three  forms  of  conduct.  The 
first  seeks  the  good  in  sensuous  enjoyment;  the  second  finds 
it  in  the  exercise  of  human-spiritual  powers  in  a  varied  civili- 
zation ;  the  third,  at  last,  transcends  the  earth  and  discovers 
the  goal  of  life  in  the  blessedness  of  the  hereafter^  which  is  here 
enjoyed  in  anticipation.  The  first  view  is,  according  to  the 
Greek  belief,  the  ideal  of  the  Asiatic  barbarians;  the  second, 
that  of  the  Greeks  ;  the  third,  that  of  the  Christians. 

It  is  plain  that  the  second  and  third  views  make  common 
cause  against  the  first.  The  rule  of  reason,  the  limitation 
and  discipline  of  the  sensuous  desires,  is  demanded  by  both 
as  the  precondition  of  perfection.  So  far  as  that  goes,  an  ascetic 
element  is  by  no  means  wanting  even  in  Greek  morality ;  it 
is  strongly  enough  emphasized  by  Plato,  the  Stoics,  and  still 
more  by  the  later  philosophers.  Indeed,  the  word  asceticism 
is  derived  from  the  Greek  language,  — it  signifies,  first  of 
all,  the  discipline  of  the  animal  nature,  which  was  practised  in 
the  gymnasia,  and  also  that  of  the  inner  life,  which  was 
practised  in  the  philosopher-schools.  It  is  well  known  that 
even  Paul  is  familiar  with  the  figure.  —  Of  course,  Christi- 
anity with  its  demand  of  self-denial  and  holiness,  goes  much 
further  than  Greek  asceticism,  which  always  remained  more 
or  less  a  form  of  self-preservation  ;  the  development  and  exer- 
cise of  the  spiritual  powers  in  philosophy  and  science  formed 
the  positive  content  of  life,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  discipline 
of  the  senses  was  demanded. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  we  also  find  attempts  at  a 
positive  treatment  of  the  mundane  world  in  Christianity; 
among  them,  for  example,  the  governance  of  human  life  ac- 


168 


ORIGINS   OF   MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


cording  to  the  principle  of  brotherly  love,  the  perfection  of  a 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  The  love  of  neighbor  becomes  a 
definite  and  tangible  thing  only  in  case  an  earthly  goal  is  pre- 
supposed, which  it  is  the  function  of  love  to  assist  in  attaining. 
And  a  Christian  doctrine,  a  kind  of  science,  also  existed  even 
at  the  beginnings  of  Christianity;  and  blessedness  consists 
in  contemplating  God.  When  Christianity  began  to  develop 
as  a  permanent  historical  form  of  life,  when  the  expectation 
of  an  early  end  of  the  world  failed  to  be  realized,  the  positive 
elements  were  unfolded ;  in  the  church  a  universal  form  of 
life  was  produced,  in  theology  a  Christian  science,  in  wor- 
ship a  motive  and  tendency  to  art.  That  the  Graeco-Roman 
example  exercised  a  highly  important  influence  in  all  this 
was  natural  and  inevitable  ;  living  in  the  world  and  attempt- 
ing to  pervade  the  world,  Christianity  adopted  some  of  the 
forms  of  the  world. 

Thus  we  have  an  approximation  of  the  extremes  from  both 
sides.     The  inner  fundamental  opposition  remains,  the  ideal 
of  perfection  is  quite  different  in  either  case ;  but  still  there 
are  approximations  and  agreements,  not  only  in  minor  points. 
And  this  made  it  possible,  when  the  church  abandoned  its 
original  exclusiveness  as  a  community  of  saints,  for  a  broad 
stratum  to  be  formed,  within  the  church,  between  pure  Greeks 
and  pure  Christians,  composed  of  such  as  sought  to  combine 
in  their  lives  Christian  and  Hellenic  elements,  holiness  and 
worldly  beauty  and  culture,  faith  and  philosophy.     We  can 
readily  understand  why  such  persons  should  have  felt  inclined 
to  minimize,  as  much  as  possible,  the  differences  between  the 
two  elements  of  their  souls.     Whoever  looks  at  things  histori- 
cally will,  it  is  true,  deny  the  similarity  between    Hellenic 
humanity  and  Christian  holiness,  but  he  will  not  doubt  the 
subjective  sincerity  of  conviction  in  those  who  do  minimize 
the  differences,  and  he  will  recognize  the  subjective  possibility 
of  reconciling  these  opposites  in  human  nature,  as  well  as  its 
objective  possibility  in  the  two  great  historical  forms  of  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MEDIAEVAL  AND  MODERN  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  i 

1.    The  theological  moral  philosophy* 

The  supranaturalistic-religious  conception  of  life  and  con- 
duct, representing,  as  it  does,  one  of  the  two  possible  courses 
of  life,  is  of  very  great  interest  to  every  thinking  man.  Not 
so  great  is  our  interest  in  the  attempts  of  the  theologians  to 
construct  a  systematic  ethics  upon  this  view.  These  attempts 
lack  the  fundamental  precondition  of  theoretical  interest: 
the  desire  to  solve,  by  means  of  an  unprejudiced  investigation, 
the  problems  which  life  propounds  to  the  acting  and  judging 
man.  Theology  finds  an  answer  for  all  questions  in  revela- 
tion ;  the  Sacred  Scriptures  determine  with  absolute  authority 
not  only  the  faith,  but  also  the  rules  of  life.  The  problem  is, 
therefore,  simply  to  establish,  to  understand,  and  to  arrange 
the  given  content,  to  defend  it  against  pagan  and  heretical 
errors,  and  finally  and  above  all  to  make  it  fruitful  for  life. 
The  moral  sermon,  the  edifying  interpretation,  puts  a  check 
upon  scientific  research. 

The  possibility  of  a  really  scientific  ethics,  an  independent 
theory  of  action,  is  absolutely  precluded  by  the  fundamental 
principle  of  church  Christianity.  Greek  ethics  tries  to  dis- 
cover by  what  conduct  the  goal  of  all  human  striving,  eudae- 
monia^  can  be  naturally  realized.  The  Christian,  too,  strives 
for  happiness,  if  we  take  this  term  in  the  widest  sense,  but 


^  [For  mediaeval  ethics  see  the  references  on  pp.  35  and  65 ;  also  the  works 
of  Stockl,  Haureau,  and  liousselot  on  the  history  of  scholastic  philosophy. 
—  Tr.] 


170  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

he  finds  it  not  in  this  earthly  life,  but  in  transmundane 
blessedness,  of  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  he  already  re- 
ceives a  foretaste  in  this  life,  in  the  happy  feeling  of  peace 
with  God.     Eternal  blessedness  is  not,  however,  like  Greek 
eudacmonia,  the  natural  effect  of  a  certain  mode  of  life,  but 
is  bestowed  by  God  as  an  act  of  grace  upon  those  who  do 
His  will.    His  will,  however.  He  has  declared  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures.     The  function  of  the   moralist  is  therefore   not 
scientifically  to  investigate  the  conditions  of  happiness  which 
are  necessary  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  but  to  interpret 
and  systematize  the  existing  divine  commands.     If  the  will 
of  God  is  posited  as  the  final  and  sole  cause  of  the  differ- 
ence between  good  and  bad,  then  there  is  no  recognizable 
natural  connection  between  the  goal  of  life  and  the  conduct 
of  life.    The  final  consequence  of  this  conception  is  drawn 
in  the  doctrine  of  predestination. 

I  shall  confine  myself  to  mentioning  a  few  of  the  most  im- 
portant phenomena  in  this  group  of  literature. 

We  may  regard  as  the  first  attempt  at  a  systematic  ex- 
position of  Christian  ethics  the  treatise  of  St.  Ambrose  on 
the  duties  of  the  clergy  {de  offieiis  ministrorum).     In  form  he 
follows  Cicero's  work  on  duties ;  the  new  content  is,  so  far  as 
possible,  inserted  into  the  scheme  of  the  four  cardinal  virtues. 
The  author  candidly  declares  that  he  cares  very  little  for  the 
form  of  the  investigation ;  to  the  objection  that  he  docs  not 
proceed  systematically  in  his  construction  of  ethics,  he  an- 
swers :  "  But  that  is  the  business  of  the  art  of  logic,  first  to 
define  the  concept  of  duty  and  then  to  divide  it  into  its  kinds : 
we,  however,  shun  theory   (nos  autem  fugimus  artem)  ;  we 
bring  to  view  the  examples  of  the  ancestors,  in  order  thereby 
most  effectually  to  urge  others  to  imitate  them."  ^     The  ex- 
amples are  mostly  taken  from  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.     This  is  quite  natural ;  the  New  Testament  does  not 
aim  at  the  establishment  of  a  worldly  order ;  far  from  it.    In- 

1  L,  25. 


MEDIAEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


171 


deed,  an  ethics  that  adapts  itself  to  a  life  in  this  world  will 
find  it  hard  to  handle.  The  Old  Testament  is  indispensable 
to  a  church  that  endeavors  to  regulate  our  daily  conduct  by 
means  of  moral  legislation.  Still,  it  remains  a  curious  fact 
that  Ambrose,  himself  a  Roman,  now  finds  it  possible  to  refer 
the  Romans  to  the  patriarchs  and  kings  of  the  Jews  as  their 
ancestors. 

The  later  moralists,  and  first  among  them  Augustine,  add 
to  the  four  cardinal  virtues  the  three  theological  virtues, 
faith,  love,  and  hope,  thus  completing  the  sacred  number 
seven.  Corresponding  to  these  seven  virtues  are  seven  fun- 
damental forms  of  sin  :  pride,  avarice,  anger,  gluttony,  licen- 
tiousness, melancholy,  dullness  (acedia,  aKtjSeca,  satiety  of 
life  would  perhaps  be  the  most  appropriate  translation).  The 
expositions  are  fond  of  describing  the  Christian  life  as  a 
battle  against  these  powers  of  darkness  which  obstruct  the 
entrance  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  "  Forces  and  counter- 
forces  are  arranged,  the  dangers  are  brought  to  light,  a  speci- 
fied number  of  virtues  and  sins  are  opposed  to  each  other, 
seven  to  eight  fundamental  names  on  both  sides,  and  the 
spiritual  gifts  of  Isaiah  besides  ;  this  entire  apparatus,  which 
was  capable  of  still  greater  elaboration,  served  to  keep  before 
the  mind  the  thought  of  the  constant  conflict  going  on  be- 
tween the  two  forces."  ^ 

The  rules  of  monachism  were  formulated  according  to  the 
same  principles.  Their  aim  was  to  fashion  the  entire  sur- 
roundings so  that  the  realization  of  Christian  perfection 
might  be  facilitated  to  the  greatest  possible  degree.  The 
state  of  holiness  might  also  be  attained  outside  of  the  cloister, 
it  did  not  consist  in  the  observance  of  the  rules  of  monastic 
life ;  but  this  life  was  supposed  to  be  the  easiest  road  to  per- 
fection ;  all  obstacles  and  hindrances  which  life  in  the  world 
placed  in  the  way  of  the  Christian  were  here  removed,  so  far 


1  Gass,  nistory  of  Christian  Ethics,  I.,  192.    The  two  volumes  of  this  work 
give  a  detailed  account  of  theological  morals. 


172  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

as  was  possible.     The  monastery  was  the  citadel  in  which  the 
warriors  of  Christ  defended  themselves,  under  the  most  favor- 
able   conditions,  against  the   attacks  which   Satan  directed 
against  them  in  the  form  of  the  flesh  and  the  world. 
"^The  monastic  rules  circumscribed  the  life  of  Christian  per- 
fection, while  a  lower  limit  was  reached  for  the  average  Chris- 
tian life  in  the   confessional    and   the   penitential    system, 
which  were  gradually  more  definitely  formulated.     When  the 
church  became  state,  and  entire  nations  were  received  into 
Christianity,  it  was  of  course  no  longer  possible  to  carry  out 
the  demand  of  a  separation  from  the  world.     As  the  world 
became  less  objectionable,  especially  on  account  of  the  dis- 
appearance of  idolatrous  sacrifices,  the  church  grew  less  timid 
in  recognizing  the  institutions  and  aspirations  of  the  world. 
Worldly  feelings  and  a  worldly  mode  of  life  became  more 
and  more  compatible  with  membership  in  the   church.     On 
the  other  hand,  a  minimum  of  righteousness  was  demanded 
from  all  members  as  a  new  law,  and  ecclesiastical  penalties 
were   imposed  upon  unlawful   acts  and   omissions.     In  the 
penance-books,  which    became    necessary,    especially  when 
Christianity  was  transplanted  to  Germanic  soil,  we  have  the 
origin  of  a  church  morality  in  the  form  of  a  legal  system. 
2.   It  is  not  my  purpose,  nor  am  I  able,  to  give  even  an 
outline  of  the  history  of  theological  ethics  during  the  Middle 
Ages  and  modern  times.     I  shall  content  myself  with  indi- 
cating the  nature  of  this  science.     It  was,  as  a  rule,  character- 
ized  by  the  desire  to  combine  Christian  holiness  and  human 
perfection.     Both   the   lex  divina,  the   divine  law,  given  by 
revelation  and  authentically  interpreted  by  the  church,  and 
the  lex  naturce,  the  law   of  perfection  impressed  upon  the 
things  by  the  Creator  and  recognized  by  the  reason,  were 
accepted   as   sources  of  knowledge.     The  universal  human 
duties   might   be   deduced  even   from   the   latter;  here   the 
attempt  of  Aristotle  served  as  the  pattern ;  besides,  this  law 
was  the  subsidiary  source  in  all  cases  where  revelation  failed 


MEDIAEVAL   AND   MODERN  SYSTEMS 


173 


to  give  express  commands.  The  specifically  Christian-relig- 
ious duties,  on  the  other  hand,  were  derived  from  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  laws  of  the  church. 

Within  the  Catholic  church  this  form  of  moral  theology  has 
continued  without  change  down  to  the  present  time.  When 
we  take  up  one  of  the  more  modern  works  in  this  field  —  for 
example,  the  widely-read  and  much  admired  book  of  the  Jesuit 
P.  Gury  ^  —  what  first  surprises  one  not  acquainted  with 
this  literature  is  its  impersonal-juristical  character  ;  the  author 
presents  a  legal  system,  giving  proofs  and  motives,  interpre- 
tations and  precedents.  The  second  surprising  fact  is  that 
time  seems  to  have  made  no  impression  upon  such  works. 
A  number  of  authorities,  continuing  without  interruption  from 
the  beginnings  of  scholastic  theology  down  to  the  present, 
accompany  the  entire  exposition ;  writers  of  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  are  quoted  by  the  side  of  those  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth,  as  living  and  recognized  authori- 
ties. It  is  as  though  history  had  left  no  trace  upon  this  sys- 
tem ;  only  occasionally  do  we  notice  that  we  are  dealing  with 
a  work  of  the  nineteenth  century  :  namely,  when  an  institu- 
tion or  a  defect  of  the  present  gives  rise  to  a  question  and  a 
response.  —  This  branch  of  science  owes  its  origin  to  the  con- 
fessional and  the  penitential  system.  It  is  necessary  for  the 
father-confessor  to  know  what  is  duty,  what  sin,  what  is  the 
degree  of  the  sin,  and  where  on  the  other  hand  the  domain 
of  the  allowable  begins.  This  determines  the  form :  sharply 
defined  definitions,  their  logical  consequences,  finally  the  solu- 
tion of  problems  and  difficulties.  The  formal  principle  of 
authority  in  this  system  is  the  will  of  God,  as  expressed  in 
the  ten  commandments  and  the  Sacred  Scriptures  in  general. 
The  aforesaid  lex  naturce  is  recognized  as  a  subsidiary  source. 

There  is  manifestly  a  serious  danger  in  such  an  exact  jurist- 
ical formulation  of  morality :  it  tends  to  make  our  entire 
moral  life  artificial.     The  natural  inclination  is  apt  to  inter- 

1  Compendium  theolvrjine  moralis,  ed.  vi.,  Romae,  1880,  2  vols. 


174 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


pret  the  system  and  its  application  in  the  confessional  to  mean 
that  the  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  will  permit  the  agent 
to  make  the  most  of  the  allowable.  And  since,  owing  to  the 
nature  of  morality,  the  lines  cannot  be  drawn  as  sharply  as  in 
the  case  of  the  positive  law,  a  wide  margin  is  left  for  those 
inclined  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  the  permissible,  to 
evade  the  real  demands  by  making  fine  distinctions  and  in- 
terpretations, and  to  rest  satisfied  with  mere  appearances.  A 
large  part  of  the  Jewish  formalism,  which  Jesus  opposed  with 
the  true  and  spiritual  worship  has  again  found  its  way  into 
the  Catholic  church.  It  cannot  fail  to  act  according  to  the 
tendency  peculiar  to  it :  and  this  tendency  is  to  entice  such 
natures  as  are  not  protected  by  an  original  sincerity  of  heart 
to  deceive  God  and  themselves  with  a  "statutory  pseudo- 
worship"  (^Afterdiensf),  to  use  Kant*s  expression. 

The  section  in  P.  Gury's  work  on  the  duty  of  Heariiig  Mass 
may  serve  as  a  sample  of  this  moral  theology's  method  of 
treatment.  Three  things  are  necessary  for  the  performance  of 
this  duty:  (I)  Bodily  Presence;  (II)  Attention  of  the  Spirit; 
(III)  The  Appropriate  Place.  As  for  the  first  point,  two  things 
arc  demanded,  (1)  The  Moral,  and  (2)  The  Uninterrupted  Pres- 
ence. (1)  Moral  Presence  ;  that  is,  the  person  must  be  present 
in  such  a  way  that  he  can  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  partici- 
pants in  the  sacrifice ;  it  suffices,  however,  that  he  be  in  a 
place  from  which  he  can  follow  the  mass  in  its  three  main 
parts,  either  as  a  spectator,  or  as  an  auditor,  or  by  watching 
the  signs  made  by  the  other  participants.  (2)  Uninterrupted 
Presence  ;  that  is,  from  beginning  to  end,  so  that  he  commits 
a  serious  sin  who  misses  a  considerable  part  of  the  mass,  a 
small  sin  who  misses  an  inconsiderable  part,  unless  excused 
by  a  good  reason.  —  Now  follow  solutions  of  doubts  :  (1)  The 
presence  at  the  mass  is  valid  even  when  the  person  does 
not  see  the  priest,  or  hear  his  words,  but  still  distinguishes 
the  parts  of  the  sacred  act  by  the  sound  of  the  bell,  the  song 
of  the  choir,  and  the   movements  of  the  participants,  and 


MEDIJDYAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


175 


*'  morally  "  joins  them,  even  though  he  stand  outside  of  the 
church  because  there  is  no  room  inside.  2.  There  is  also  a 
greater  probability  (est  prohahilius)  that  he,  too,  lawfully  hears 
the  mass  who  is  staying  in  a  neighboring  house  from  which 
he  can  see  the  altar  or  the  assistants  through  the  window  or 
the  door,  or  can  distinguish  the  parts  of  the  mass,  provided 
the  intervening  space  is  but  small;  in  case  there  is  a  large 
space  or  a  street  between,  he  cannot  be  said  to  be  "  morally  " 
present.     Some  fix  the  limit  at  thirty  steps. 

Then  follow  answers  to  doubts  and  questions  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Uninterruptedness  of  the  Presence,  with  an 
exact  definition  of  the  degree  of  guilt,  which  the  omission  of 
each  particular  part  involves.  I  omit  these  items,  and  pro- 
ceed to  the  second  point,  the  Attention  of  the  Mind.  A  dis- 
tinction is  made  between  two  kinds  of  attention :  (1)  Inner 
Attention,  in  which  a  person  really  observes  what  the  priest  is 
doing;  (2)  Outer  Attention,  which  consists  in  avoiding  QWQry 
external  act  that  hinders  the  mind  from  paying  attention,  as 
for  example,  talking,  drawing,  etc.  The  Inner  Attention  in 
turn  is  threefold :  (a)  that  which  is  directed  upon  the  words 
and  acts  of  the  priest;  (b)  upon  the  meaning  of  the  words 
and  mysteries;  (c)  upon  God  himself  in  prayer  and  pious 
contemplation.  The  definitions  and  distinctions  are  now 
followed  by  the  principles  of  application  :  (1)  For  the  valid 
hearing  of  the  mass  (ad  Mlssam  valide  audiendam)  external 
attention  at  least  is  absolutely  necessary.  So  all  authorities. 
(2)  Some  inner  attention  is  also  requisite,  at  least  the  will  to 
hear  the  mass.  (3)  But  any  one  of  the  three  forms  of  inner 
attention  suffices  (sufficit).  (4)  Loud  prayers  are  not  abso- 
lutely necessary,  but  commendable.  And  now  come  again 
questions  (quoesita}  and  answers  (responsa).  Is  the  inner 
attention  necessary  in  order  to  avoid  grievous  sin  {suh  gravi)  ? 
The  answer  is  in  dispute :  the  affirmation  is  prohahilior^  but 
the  negation  too  is  prohabilis  (that  is,  sanctioned  by  good 
authority),  since  the  presence  with  voluntary,  though  merely 


176 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


external,  attention  is  an  actus  sufficienter  religiosus.  In  prac- 
tice, the  author  adds,  the  difference  is  not  great.  For  even 
according  to  the  stricter  view,  a  moderate  attention  {attentio 
in  yradu  remisso)  suffices,  that  is,  if  directed  upon  the  main 
parts  of  the  mass.  But  according  to  the  other,  the  requisites 
are :  (1)  a  pious  emotion,  or  the  real  intention  to  honor  God ; 
(2)  such  attention  that  the  participant  can  say  to  himself 
that  he  is  a  real  participant,  and  consequently  that  he  pays 
attention  to  the  main  parts,  at  least  confusedly  (in  co^ifuso). 
Hence,  believers  should  not  be  lightly  accused  of  a  lack  of 
attention  while  attending  mass,  but  should  rather  be  admon- 
ished lovingly,  devoutly,  and  diligently  to  turn  their  minds  to 
the  divine  mysteries.  —  It  is  evident  that  all  this  is  not  much 
unlike  a  code  of  etiquette :  for  a  social  call  a  black  coat,  a 
high  hat,  and  gloves  are  requisite,  but  one  or  the  other  may 
be  dispensed  with  under  certain  circumstances. 

The  entire  field  of  duties  is  gone  through  in  the  same  way : 
the  duty  of  justice,  which  is  really  susceptible  to  this  treat- 
ment, likewise  the  duty  of  love  of  enemy,  the  duty  of  charity, 
the  duties  of  married  life;  everywhere  we  find  the  same 
attempt  to  stake  off  exactly  the  boundaries  of  that  which  is 
required  (requiritur) ;  everywhere  the  unfortunate  sufficity 
according  to  the  probable  or  more  probable^  or  according  to 
the  opinion  of  all.  The  advice,  too,  concluding  the  examina- 
tion of  the  obligations  in  regard  to  the  mass,  is  not  infrequently 
repeated:  Do  not  interrogate  punctiliously  and  frighten  the 
conscience,  but  admonish  lovingly.  But,  on  the  whole,  this 
juristical  treatment  of  morality  will  leave  a  painful  impression 
on  one  not  accustomed  to  it,  not  on  account  of  the  harshness 
of  its  demands  —  on  the  contrary,  the  sufficit  often  comes 
surprisingly  soon  —  but  on  account  of  its  entire  method  of 
fixed  prescriptions  and  outward  compliance,  and  its  attempt  to 
appraise  the  most  spiritual  things  in  the  world.^ 

1  It  is  customary  to  criticise  such  text-books  severely  on  account  of  their 
treatment  of  the  seventh  commandment.  Well,  the  perusal  of  this  portion  is  cer- 
tainly not  an  edifying  task,  and  I  am  also  of  the  opinion  that  the  prescription  and 


MEDIEVAL   AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


177 


Such  a  moral  theology  is,  of  course,  a  necessary  conse- 
quence  of  the  entire  confessional  and  penitential  system: 
it  was  necessary  to  furnish  the  father-confessor,  who  did  not 
himself  have  the  experience  or  the  ability  to  settle  such 
difficult  matters,  with  the  most  careful  possible  instructions 
for  his  guidance.  But  it  is  undoubtedly  well  that  the  Prot- 
estant churches  are  relieved  of  this  necessity  by  the  abolition 
of  the  entire  system.  The  individual  confession  is,  of  course, 
theoretically,  the  only  real  confession ;  but  the  regular  en- 
forcement of  the  individual  confession  was  an  awfully  dan- 
gerous step.  The  power  of  the  church  over  souls  may  have 
been  strengthened  by  the  practice  and  perhaps  it  also  helped 
to  establish  external  obedience  and  discipline;  but  it  is 
more  than  doubtful  whether  inner  piety  and  conscientious- 
ness have  been  promoted  by  it.  And  one  thing  surely  has  not 
been  promoted  by  the  confessional  —  that  is,  man's  truthful- 
ness to  himself  and  to  his  God. 

Moreover,  two  things  must  not  be  forgotten  here :  first, 
that  these  moral  books  are  not  intended  for  the  layman 
as  text-books  and  books  of  devotion;  their  object  is  to 
give  instructions  to  the  father-confessor.  Secondly,  this 
morality  does  not  formulate  the  ideal,  but  the  minimum 
of  what  is  demanded  of  every  one  on  pain  of  punishment. 
The  ideal  to  which  the  sermon  constantly  refers  is  the  life 
of  the  saints.  The  Imitation  of  Christ  by  Thomas  a  Kempis 
describes  it :  a  book  of  such  simplicity  and  such  deep  knowl- 
edge of  the  heart,  and  withal  of  such  plainness  and  vigor  of 
speech,  as  have  scarcely  been  equalled  in  any  work  of  its  kind ; 
there  is  genuine  inner  monachism  in  it,  and  monachism  of 
that  sort  surely  contains  a  large  element  of  real  Christianity. 

presumably  also  the  practice  of  the  confessional  here  enters  upon  a  subject  which 
had  better  not  be  discussed,  for  some  agreement  might  surely  be  reached  with- 
out such  discussion.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  said  that  those  who  have  in 
charge  the  care  of  souls  cannot  ignore  these  things ;  if  medicine  and  jurisprudence 
are  compelled  to  deal  with  them,  moral  theology  and  the  confessional  will  liave 
to  look  them  square  in  the  face. 

12 


178  ORIGmS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Moreover,  that  the  type  of  true,  inner  monachism  has  not 
yet  become  extinct  in  the  Catholic  church  the  reader  will 
learn  from  a  book  in  which  he  may  perhaps  not  look  for  it, 
in  Kenan's  Souvenirs  de  jeunesse.  Renan  was  educated  in 
theological  seminaries ;  he  remembers  the  teachers  and  edu- 
cators  of  his  youth  with  the  deepest  respect ;  in  four  things, 
he  says,  they  remained  his  models— in  unselfishness  and 
poverty,  in  modesty,  in  politeness,  and  in  the  preservation  of 

morality. 

Besides,  moral-theological  works  are  not  wantmg  m 
Catholic  theology  which  conceive  and  present  the  Christian- 
moral  life  in  a  freer  and  deeper  spirit.  As  such  I  mention 
J.  M.  Sailer's  Handbook  of  Christian  Morals^  and  J.  B. 
Hirscher's   Christian  Morals.'^ 

Within  the  Protestant  churches,  moral  theology  was  over- 
shadowed    by    dogmatics   and  also   lacked   the   logical   con- 
sistency of  an  ecclesiastical  system.     Though  it  still  followed 
the  old  scheme :  lex  divina  and  lex  naturce,  the  desire  for  a 
juristical   treatment    of    the    subject    gradually    diminished 
with  the  decline  of  church  discipline.     Moreover,  the  devel- 
opment  of  the  Protestant  principle  of  faith   also  led  to  a 
deeper  conception  of  morality,  but,  of  course,  likewise  tempted 
the  new  church  to  engage  in  theological  speculations  to  the 
ne-lect  of  practical  problems.     On  the  other  hand,  owing  to 
th^  absence   of   an   external  binding    authority,   Protestant 
moral  theology  entered  into  closer  relations  with  philosophi- 
cal  ethics;   since   the   middle   of    the   last   century,  it  has 
successively  fallen  under  the  influence  of  Wolff,  Kant,  and 
Speculative  Philosophy.     Schleiermacher,  to  whose  system  I 
shall  return  later  on,  betrays   the  influence   of  the   latter. 
R.  Rothe  has  constructed  a  very  comprehensive  theological 
ethics,3  which  is  overburdened  with  an  immense  amount  of 

1  Handbuch  der  chrtstlichen  Moral,  3  vols.,  1817. 
«  Die  christliche  Moral,  3  vols.,  1835. 
8  Second  edition,  1867-71,  5  vols. 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


179 


reading  matter,  upon  Schleiermacher's  principles.  In  addi- 
tion we  may  mention,  Dorner,  St/stem  of  Christian  Ethics  i 
and  the  work  of  the  Danish  bishop,  Martensen,  Christian 
Ethics.'^ 

3.      llodern  moral  philosophy/. 

The  following  exposition,  which  expressly  disclaims  being 
a  history  of  modern  moral  philosophy,  simply  desires  to  give 
a  few  typical  examples  of  the  chief  modes  of  treatment  of  this 
subject  in  modern  times.^ 

At  the  head  of  modern  moral  philosophy  we  may  place 
Thomas  Hobbes.*  The  fundamental  idea  upon  which  he 
bases  his  practical  philosophy  is  the  concept  of  self-preserva- 
tion. He  thus  returns  to  the  Greek  mode  of  treatment. 
Although  he  does  not  always  emphasize  the  fact,  he  is  uni- 
versally conscious  of  his  opposition  to  the  system  of  ethics 
which  demands  self-denial. 

It  seems  that  Hobbes  derived  this  conception  of  human 
conduct  from  the  science  in  which  his  age  was  pre-eminently 
interested:   from   mechanical   physics.      Galileo   had   based 

1  System  der  christUchen  Sittenlehre,  1885  [English  translation,  1887]. 

2  [Fourth  edition,  1888,  2  vols.  (English  translation  in  3  vols.,  1873-83).     See 
also  N.  Smyth,  Christian  Ethics,  New  York,  1892.— Tr.] 

8  I  refer  the  reader  to  Fr.   Jodl's  History  of  Ethics  in  Modern  Philosophy 
(Geschichte  der  Ethik  in  der  neueren  Philosophie),  2  vols.,  1882-89,  an  admirable 
work  which  gives  the  first  connected  account  of  the  history  of  modern  moral 
pliilosophy.     G.  von  Gizycki's  work  on  the  Ethics  of  David  Hume  (1878)  is  also 
valuable  ;  it  contains,  besides  a  detailed  account    of  Hume,  an  outline  of  the 
entire  development  of  moral  philosophy  in  England.   An  elaborate  and  thorough 
exposition  of  the  history  of  ethics  and  jurisprudence  in  the  eighteenth  and  nine- 
teenth centuries,  especially  of  the  Speculative  School  in  Germanv,  is  given  by  J.  H. 
Ficlite  in  the  first,  historico-critical  part  of  his  S,/stem  of  Ethics  (1850).    [Consult 
the  references    on  p.  35,  note;   also   Whewell,  Histor,/  of  Moral  Phitosoph, ; 
Vorlander,  Geschichte  der  philosophischen  Moral,  Rechts-und  Stantslehre;  Mackin- 
tosh, On  the  Progress  of  Ethical  Philosophy  during  the  11  th  and  I8th  Centuries- 
Stephen,  English  Thought  of  the  Eighteenth  Century;  Lecky,  Histor,/  of  European 
Morals,  chap.   I. ;  Guyau,  La  morale  anglaise  contemporaine ;  Fouille'e,    Critique 
des  systhnes  de  morale  contemporains  ;  Williams,  A  Review  of  Evolutionary  Ethics. 
See  also  the  histories  of  modern  philosophy,  especially  Kuno  Fischer's  able  work* 
and  for  bibliographies  on  particular  authors,  Ueberweg  and  Weber-Thilly.  —  Tr  j 
*  [For  bibliography,  see  Weber,  p.  301,  note  1 ;   also  Tonnies,  Hobbes*  Leben 
und  Lehre.  and  Sneath's  Selections  from  Hobbes's  etliical  writings.  —  Tr.J 


180  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

modern  physics  upon  the  new  fundamental  law  of  the  con- 
servation  of  motion.     Hobbes   expressly  places  himself  by 
the  side  of  Galileo,  the  founder  of  natural  philosophy,  as  the 
founder  of  the  philosophia  civilis,  the  science  of   the  state. 
He  bases  the  latter  upon  the  corresponding  principle  of  ani- 
mal life :  the  law  of  self-preservation.    Just  as  all  physical 
processes  are  subject  to  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  motion, 
so  all  the  processes  in  the  living  world  are  subject  to  the  nat- 
ural law  of  self-preservation.    Every  living  creature  strives  in 
everything  that  it  does  to  preserve  its  life ;  it  desires  what 
furthers  this  and  shrinks  from  what  hinders  it.    However,  its 
acts  do  not  always  make  for  preservation ;  it  constantly  aims 
at  the  latter,  but  does  not  always  hit  the  mark.    This  is  es- 
pecially true  in  the  case  of  man.     Hence  arises  the  antithesis 
between  good  and  bad  acts.    Man  always  desires  what  is  good 
for  him,  but  not  infrequently  does  what  is  bad  and  pernicious. 
The  cause  is  a  false  opinion  of  what  is  good  and  bad.     Good 
action  is  therefore  identical  with  prudent  action,  and  to  do 
wrong  is  to  act  imprudently,  or  against  "  right  reason." 

Hobbes  did  not   construct  a  system   of   ethics  upon  this 
basis,  but  his  politics  rests  upon  it.i     Man  does  not  attain 
to  what  he  strives  after,  that  is,  self-preservation,  outside  of 
society ;  on  the  one  hand,  because  his  powers  do  not  suffice 
to  subject  nature  to  his  will,  on  the  other,  because  individuals 
come  in  conflict  with  each  other,  and  all  therefore  live  m  a 
state  of  continual  insecurity.     The  natural  state  is  a  uni- 
versal  state  of  war  {helium  omnium  contra  omnes).     Since,  m 
such  a  state,  no  one  can  obtain  that  which  he  desires,  the 
preservation   and  perfection   of  individual  life,  right  reason 
demands  the  organization  of  society ;  its  form  is  the  state, 
which  we  may  therefore  designate  as  an  institution  for  uni- 
versal self-preservation.  In  the  status  civilis  are  peace,  security, 
wealth,  welfare,  in  short,  self-preservation.     The  state   pre- 
supposes the  absolute  submission   of  the  individuals  to  its 

1  De  clve,  1642 ;  Leviathan,  1650. 


MEDLEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


181 


will  which  prescribes  to  them  by  means  of  laws  what  to  do 
and  what  to  refrain  from  doing.  To  act  contrary  to  the  law  is 
of  course  wrong,  for  it  is  contrary  to  the  necessary  means  of 
self-preservation,  hence  contrary  to  right  reason.  But  this 
does  not  at  all  mean,  as  some  have  misinterpreted  Hobbes, 
that  good  and  bad  are  wholly  synonymous  with  in  accor- 
dance withj  or  contrary  to^  law.  The  laws  of  the  state  may 
themselves  be  good  or  bad,  according  as  they  promote  or 
retard  welfare  and  hence  are  in  accordance  with  or  contrary 
to  right  reason.  The  agent  as  such  cannot,  of  course,  judge 
of  this,  but  the  philosopher  as  such  can. 

4.     Spinoza  ^  constructs  a  system  of  ethics  upon  this  con- 
ception in  the  work,  Ethica?'  which  did  not  appear  until  after 
his  death  (1677).     The  starting-point  of  the  truly  ethical  por- 
tion of  the  book  is  the  sixth  proposition  of  Part  III :  "  Every- 
thing, in  so  far  as  it  is  in  itself,  strives  to  persist  in  its  own 
being."     This  is  true  of  the  body  as  well  as  of  the  soul.     Now, 
the  essence  of  the  mind  consists  in  ideation.     But  ideas  differ 
from  each  other ;  we  have  active  and  passive  ideation ;  the 
former  is  scientific  thinking,  the  latter,  sensation  and  feeling, 
—  the  former  gives  us  adequate,  the  latter,  fragmentary  and 
confused  ideas,  that  is,  ideas  of  which  the  causes  do  not,  or  do 
not  wholly,  lie  within  the  soul  itself,  but  in  the  things  outside 
of   it.     Self-preservation  is,  therefore,  for  the  mind,  activity 
in  scientific  thinking ;  self-denial  and  weakness,  tlie  suffering 
of  things  in  sensation  and  feeling ;  the  former  represents  the 
freedom,  the  latter,  the  bondage  of  man.     Hence,  in  so  far  as 
the  soul  is  really  master  of  itself,  in  so  far  as  its  striving  is 
guided  by  the  proper  insight  into  that  which  agrees  with  its 
essence,  it  strives  to  preserve  itself  in  pure  thought,  and  to 
remove  everything  that  is  contrary  to  it.     And  so  we  are 
brought  back  again  to  the  old  proposition  of  Greek  ethics : 
Philosophy^  or  scientific  knowledge^  is  the  function  of  life  and 
the  highest  good, 

1  [For  bibliography,  see  Weber-Thilly,  323,  note  1.] 

2  [Translations  by  White  and  FuUerton.] 


,  I 


182  ORIGINS  OF  MOllAL  PHILOSOPHY 

Spinoza  shows  the  twofold  value  of  knowledge :  it  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  highest,  freest,  most  perfect  activity  of  life, 
the  absolute  end  in  itself;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  means 
of  freeing  us  from  the  bondage  to  which  the  irrational  man 
is  subjected  by  his  affections. 

The  fourth  book  of  the  Ethia  regards  reason  as  the  means 
of  self-preservation.     There  are  two  great  sciences,  physics 
and  psychology,  corresponding  to  the  two  phases  of  reality, 
the  world  of  bodies  and  the  world  of  ideas  ires-tde<B). 
Physics  forms  the  basis  of  two  practical  sciences,  mechanics 
and  medicine  ;  psychology  (or  the  science  of  mind)  the  basis 
of  ethics  and   politics.     With  these  four  practical   sciences 
reason  regulates  life.     Spinoza  discusses  the  two  latter 
Ethics  is  the  knowledge  of  the  proper  behavior  of  the 
.  individual  in  reference  to  himself  and  to  other  individuals 
Animals  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  most  men,  are  determined 
in  their  action  by  feelings ;  anger  incites  them  to  requite 
injury  with  injury,  compassion  impels  them  to  assist  those  in 
need  and  so  forth.     The  wise  man,  on  the  other  hand,  lives 
according  to  reason  iex  ductu  rationi»-) ;  he  alone  realizes  the 
end  of  self-preservation,  while  those  governed  by  their  feelings 
often    miss  it:  the    desire  for  revenge,  ambition,   avarice, 
the  love  of  enjoyment,  -  whatever  their  names  may  be,  - 
frequently  lead  to  ruin.     He,  however,  who  is  governed  by 
reason  knows  the  value  and  the  measure  of  things,  in  what 
respects  they  are  wholesome,  in  what  harmful.    He  sees  that 
the  requiting  of  evil  with  evil  gives  rise  to  lasting  enmity, 
causing  mutual    insecurity,  distrust,  nay   even  destruction, 
while    hatred    can  bo   overcome,  and    love   and  friendship 
produced  by  calmness  and  kindness. 

Likewise  basing  itself  upon  the  knowledge  o  human 
nature,  the  science  of  politics  shows  how  collective  life  must 
be  fashioned  in  order  that  not  war  and  insecurity,  but  peace 
and  benevolence  may  be  the  result,  and  that  all  may  co-operate 
to  preserve  and  promote  life. 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


183 


Knowledge, finally,  accomplishes  something  else:  it  produces 
peace  of  mind  ;  it  leads  to  the  conviction  that  everything  that 
happens  follows  by  eternal  necessity  from  the  nature  of  things. 
The  fruit  of  this  conviction  is  tranquilitas  animi.  We  cease  to 
struggle  against  that  the  necessity  of  which  we  understand ; 
that  is  unbearable  which  seems  to  happen  contrary  to  fate 
and  justice:  how  men  would  rebel  against  death,  if  not 
all,  but  only  a  few  had  to  die  !  Above  all,  knowledge  makes  us 
tolerant  in  our  judgment  of  men ;  it  is  men's  nature  to  be  what 
they  are,  vacillating,  ungrateful,  vain,  revengeful,  a  frail  race ; 
the  philosopher  knows  that  their  conduct  is  the  result  of  their 
nature,  the  weakness  of  reason  and  the  strength  of  the  feelings ; 
and  to  understand  everything  means  to  forgive  everything. 
Hence,  true  knowledge  is  the  means  of  the  preservation  and 
the  perfection  of  life. 

Knowledge  is  at  the  same  time,  so  the  end  of  the  fifth  book 
declares,  life's  highest  and  most  valuable  content.  Knowledge 
is,  as  distinguished  from  feeling,  self-activity  ;  to  become  aware 
of  one's  power  and  independence  arouses  joy  ;  the  knowledge 
of  the  highest  in  the  highest  form,  the  knowledge  of  God  or 
nature,  the  sum  total  of  reality  or  perfection,  produces  the 
highest  joy.  From  joy  arises  the  love  of  God  {amor  Dei  in- 
tellectualis)^  who  in  knowledge  fills  the  soul  with  blessedness. 
Thus  closes  with  a  religious  turn  the  ethics  of  Spinoza. 

The  union  of  knowledge,  love  of  God,  and  blessedness,  the 
beginning  and  end  of  all  his  reflections,  is  evidently  the  result 
of  the  philosopher's  personal  experiences.  He  excluded  him- 
self and  was  excluded  from  the  community  of  faith  into  which  he 
was  born;  he  excluded  himself  and  was  excluded  from  practical 
life  and  public  activity ;  he  excluded  himself  and  was  excluded 
from  the  competition  for  reputation  and  literary  fame,  and 
withdrew  entirely  to  the  world  of  his  thoughts  where  he  found 
peace,  rest,  and  happiness.  His  system  of  ethics  is  the  result 
of  these  conditions.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Tractatus  de 
intellectus  emendatione  he  himself  declares :   "  After  experi- 


184  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

ence  had  taught  me  that  alJ  the  usual  surroundings  of  social 
life  are  vain  and  futile;  seeing  that  none  of  the  objects  of  my 
fears  contained  in  themselves  anything  either  good  or  bad  ex- 
cept  in  so  far  as  the  mind  is  affected  by  them,  I  finally  resolved 
to  inquire  whether  there  might  be  some  real  good  having  power 
to  communicate  itself,  which  would  affect  the  mind  smgly,  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  else :  whether,  in  fact,  there  might  be  any- 
thincr  of  which  the  discovery  and  attainment  would  enable  me 
to  enjoy  continuous,  supreme,  and  unending  happiness.    1  say 
a  finally  resolved,'  for  at  first  sight  it  seemed  unwise  will- 
in.ly  to  lose  hold  on  what  was  sure,  for  the  sake  of  something 
th^n  uncertain.     I  could  see  the  benefits  which  are  acquired 
through  fame  and  riches,  and  that  I  should  be  obliged  to 
abandon  the  quest  of  such  objects,  if  I  seriously  devoted  my- 
self  to  the  search  for  something  different  and  new  .  .  .  i 
therefore  debated  whether  it  would  not  be  possible  to  arrive 
at  the  new  principle,  or,  at  any  rate,  at  a  certainty  concerning 
its  existence,  without  changing  the  conduct  and  usual  plan  of 
my  life ;  with  this  end  in  view  I  made  many  efforts,  but  in 
vain.     For  the   ordinary    surroundings    of    life    which    are 
esteemed  by  men  (as  their  actions  testify)  to  be  the  highest 
.rood,  may  be  classed  under  the  three  heads -Riches,  Fame, 
and  the  Pleasures  of  Sense :  with  these  three  the  mind  is  so 
absorbed  that  it  has  little  power  to  reflect  on  any  different 
good  "     The  quest  for  the  highest  good,  therefore,  could  not 
be  reconciled  with  these  things.     "  However,  after  I  had 
reflected  on  the  matter,  I  came  in  the  first  place  to  the  con- 
clusion that  these  things  were  not,  as  I  originally  believed 
certain,  but  rather  very  uncertain  goods  ;  nay  I  finally  saw  that 
they  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  certain  evils,  for  they  are 
not  only  not  means  of  preserving  our  being,  but  even  act  as 
hindrances,   causing    the   death  not  seldom  of    those  that 
possess  them,  and  always  of  those  who  are  possessed  by  them. 
^  All  these  evils  seem  to  have  arisen  from  the  fact,  that  hap- 
piness  or  unhappiness  is  made  wholly  to  depend  on  the  quality 


MEDLEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


185 


of  the  object  which  we  love.  When  a  thing  is  not  loved,  no 
quarrels  will  arise  concerning  it  —  no  sadness  will  be  felt  if  it 
perishes,  no  fear,  no  hatred ;  in  short,  no  disturbance  of  the 
mind.  All  these  arise  from  the  love  of  what  is  perishable, 
such  as  the  objects  already  mentioned.  But  love  towards 
a  thing  eternal  and  infinite  fills  the  mind  wholly  with 
joy,  and  is  itself  unmingled  with  any  sadness,  wherefore 
it  is  greatly  to  be  desired  and  sought  for  with  all  our 
strength."  ^ 

5.  This  ethical  philosophy  was  essentially  supplemented 
and  developed  by  Lord  Shaftesbury .^  He  gives  the  ethics  of 
self-preservation  a  broader  anthropological  foundation,  by 
abandoning  the  rigid  individualistic  egoism  of  Hobbes  and 
Spinoza,  and  thus  bases  virtue  upon  impulses  and  feelings, 
whereas  the  former  seem  to  base  it  solely  upon  reason  and 
calculation.  His  fundamental  conceptions,  the  beginnings  of 
which  we  find  in  many  other  contemporary  English  moralists, 
especially  in  Cumberland,^  the  most  important  among  the 
opponents  of  Hobbes,  are  about  as  follows.  I  am,  in  the 
main,  following  the  Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  and  Merit,  1699, 
contained  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Characteristics.^ 

We  may  accept  the  proposition  that  every  being  strives  to 
preserve  itself,  but  must  add :  What  we  call  an  individual  is 
not  an  independent  being  aiming  solely  at  its  own  preserva- 
tion ;  the  species  alone  is  independent  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
term, — the  individual  is  related  to  it  as  a  member  to  its  organ. 
This  is  the  case,  considered  from  the  purely  biological  point 
of  view :  the  individual  owes  its  nature  and  existence  to  the 
species ;  by  reproducing  itself  it  serves  as  an  organ  for  the 
preservation  of  the  species. 

1  [Translation  in  Bohn*s  Library.] 

'^  [See  Gizycki,  Die  Philosophie  Shajieshury^s ;  Fowler,  Shafieshury  and  Hutchi- 
son ;  Albee,  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson  {Phil.  Review,  vol.  V.).  —  Tr.] 

8  [De  legihus  naturce,  1672  (Engl,  transl.  by  J.  Maxwell,  1727).  See  Ernest 
Albee,  The  Ethical  System  of  Richard  Cumberland  {Phil.  Review,  vol.  IV.).  —  Tr.] 

*  [Edited  by  W.  Hatch,  3  vols.,  1869.  — Tr.] 


'1l 


186 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


MEDIEVAL   AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


187 


i  i' 


This  highly  important  fact,  which   Hobbes   and   Spinoza 
absolutely  ignored,  is  also  noticeable  in  the  soul-life  of  the 
human  individual.     His   self -preservative  impulse   does  not 
aim  exclusively  at  the  preservation  of  his  own  life,  but  just 
as  directly  at  the  preservation  of  the  species.     Shaftesbury 
expresses  this  truth  as  follows :  two  kinds  of  impulses  may 
be  distino-uished  in  man:  individualistic  and  social;  he  calls 
the  former  private^  selfish  affections,  the  latter,  natural,  kind, 
social  affections ;  by  his  successor,  Hutcheson,i  the  latter  are 
also  more  appropriately  termed  sympathetic  affections.     The 
goal  to  which  the  selfish  affections  impel  man  is  his  own 
individual   welfare  (^private  good)  \  the  goal  to  which   the 
social  affections  impel  him  is  the  common  welfare,  the  preser- 
vation of  the  system  of  which  the  individual  forms  a  part 
{public  goody     Both   impulses   are   equally    original,    both 
equally  rooted  in  nature ;  it  is  by  no  means  possible  to  derive 
the  social  impulses  from  the  individualistic  impulse  of  self- 
preservation,  say  by  the  round-about  way  of  prudence.     Even 
in  animal  life  the  impulse  which  serves  the  preservation  of 
the  species  in  the  reproduction  and  care  of  offspring,  is  as 
strong  and  original  as  the  individualistic,  self-preservative 
impulse,  and  uniformly  asserts  itself  at  the  expense  of  self- 
preservation. 

In  man  as  a  rational  being  a  third  form  is  added  to  these 
two  primitive  motives  of  the  will ;  which  Shaftesbury  calls 
reflex,  rational  affections;  they  are  the  feelings  which  are 
produced  by  reflection  on  human  actions.  Just  as  the  con- 
templation of  works  of  art  produces  feelings  of  disinterested 
pleasure  and  displeasure,  so  the  contemplation  of  human  acts 
and  qualities  arouses  feelings  of  approval  and  disapproval 
in  the  spectator,  and  he  accordingly  designates  them  as  good 
or  bad,  just  as  he  calls  the  former  beautiful  or  ugly.  We  may 
regard  a  moral  sense  as  the  source  of  the  latter,  as  we  regard 

1  [Inqxtiry  into  the  Original  of  Our  Ideas  of  Beauty  and  Virtue,  1723 ;  Philosophia 
tnoralis  institntis,  1745;  A  System  of  Moral  Philosophy,  1755.  — Tr.] 


an  aesthetic  sense  as  the  source  of  the  former.  The  qualifying 
judgment  is  first  pronounced  upon  the  conduct  of  others,  but 
it  is  also  pronounced  upon  the  agent's  own  conduct,  and  is 
then  called  conscience.— These  feelings,  too,  impel  the  will 
to  action,  directing  it  towards  the  general  welfare,  which  in- 
cludes individual  welfare  ;  such  acts  are  disapproved  as  tend 
to  produce  disturbances  in  the  life  of  others  and  in  the  life 
of  the  agent  himself. 

That  is  the  result  of  the  psychological  analysis,  or,  as 
Shaftesbury  himself  once  said,  of  the  anatomy  of  the  soul. 
The  latter  is  the  foundation  of  ethics,  as  the  anatomy  and 
physiology  of  the  body  are  the  foundation  of  dietetics. 

Now  in  what  does  the  health  or  perfection  of  soul-life 
consist?  Precisely  in  what  the  health  of  bodily  life  con- 
sists. The  latter  consists  in  the  harmonious  co-operation 
of  all  the  organs,  the  former  in  the  harmonious  co-opera- 
tion of  the  well-regulated  impulses,  in  the  regulated  econ- 
omy of  the  selfish  and  social  affections,  as  Shaftesbury  once 
expressed  it.  There  are  no  impulses  which  are  bad  in  them- 
selves,  how  could   they  have  come  into  this  God-created 

nature  ?  The  selfish  impulses,  too,  are  good  as  such,  they 
are  indispensable  to  the  preservation  of  living  creatures; 
they  become  bad  through  one-sided,  excessive  development. 
The  impulse  to  acquire  wealth  is  good  and  necessary  in 
itself;  only  when  as  avarice  it  becomes  the  predominating 
motive,  and  dwarfs  the  other  impulses,  does  it  become  bad. 
Compassion  is  good  in  itself :  if,  however  —  which,  of  course, 
does  not  frequently  happen  — it  should  gain  such  control 
over  man  as  to  prevent  him  from  thinking  of  his  duties, 
all  on  account  of  his  pity  and  sympathy  for  the  distress 
of  others,  it  would  ruin  his  life  and  soon  render  him  in- 
capable of  assisting  others.  Hence  a  soul  has  health  or 
natural  perfection,  in  which  the  selfish  impulses  are  strong 
enough  to  urge  the  individual  to  perform  all  the  functions 
essential  to  self-preservation,  and  in  which  the  social  impulses 


i 


188  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

are  sufficiently  powerful  to  arouse  the  proper  regard  for  the 

universal  welfare.  ^  .^    n    :4. 

In  order  to  attain  to  true  moral  excellence  (vir^tiO,  '^ 
is  necessary  to  fashion  the  moral  sense  into  a  strong  regu- 
lative  principle.  When  conscience  {the  sense  of  right  and 
^rong)  secures  conduct  against  the  fluctuations  of  inclina. 
tion  which  occur  even  in  a  good  nature,  then  we  call  a  man 
morally  good  or  virtuous.  We  shall,  therefore,  also  call  a 
man  virtuous  who  is  endowed  with  an  unruly  temperament, 
say  with  strong  selfish  impulses,  when  he  governs  his  nature 
according  to  principles ;  and  the  greater  the  resistance,  the 
more  virtuous  we  shall  consider  him. 

The  similarity  as  well  as  the  difference  between  th^^e  con- 
ceptions  and  those  of  Hobbes  may  be  easily  seen      We  have 
the  same  fundamental   idea:  that  is  good  which  makes  for 
self-preservation;  but  it  is  the  self-preservation,  not  of  the 
isolated  individual,  but  of  the  species  or  society  and  withm  it 
of  the  individual,  at  which  the  will  actually  aims,  and   by 
which  its  objective  value  is  measured.     Shaftesbury  is  fond 
of  emphasizing  his  opposition  to  Hobbes ;  it  is  an  opposition 
based  not  merely  on  principles,  but  likewise  on  personal  feel- 
inc^s  and  judgments.     Shaftesbury  is  an  optimist,  Hobbes  a 
pelsimist,  in  his  judgment  of  men.     The  latter  likes  to  look 
at  the  ferocious,  the  former  at  the  lovable  and  benevolen 
sides  of  human  nature.     He  is  fond  of  emphasizing  the  fact 
that  there  is  for  man,  according  to  the  experience  of  every 
one,  no  greater  and  purer  happiness  than  to  contribute  to 
the  happiness  of  others.    Hence  the  social  virtues  are  a  direct 
source  of  happiness  to  those  who  possess  them.     And  the 
lack  of  them  is  just  as  certain  to  make  men  unhappy  ;  there 
could  be  no  greater  misfortune  for  a  man  than  to  live  abso- 
lutely alone,  without  friends,  without   giving  and  receiving 
svmpathy.     Hence  all  feelings  and  qualities  which  tend   to 
lead  to  such  a  state -anger,  hatred,  envy,  coldness,  selfish- 
ness-are  suited  to  make  their  possessor  unhappy.     Anc 


MEDLEVAL   AND   MODERN   SYSTEMS 


189 


therefore,  so  he  concludes  his  Inquiry  on  Virtue^  virtue  is  the 
good,  and  vice  the  evil  for  every  one. 

In  Shaftesbury  we  already  meet  that  amiable  optimism 
which  forms  such  a  prominent  trait  of  eighteenth  century 
philosophy :  God  is  good ;  the  world  is  good ;  man  is  good ;  — 
his  nature  is  not  so  unfortunately  constructed  that  the  phases 
essential  to  his  happiness  must  first  be  artificially  introduced 
by  way  of  deliberation  and  calculation,  as  Hobbes  main- 
tains. The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  assist  his  real  nature  in 
overcoming  all  kinds  of  obstacles  and  perversions.  It  is  this 
credulous  optimism  which  Mandeville  so  keenly  criticises 
in  his  Fable  of  the  Bees^  a  little  satire  of  great  force,  to 
which  a  long  commentary   of  little  value  was  afterwards 

added. 

Modem  moral  philosophy  reached  its  first  climax  in  Shaftes- 
bury ;  none  of  the  essential  elements  is  wanting  in  his  system. 
It  is  the  fundamental  conception  of  ancient  ethics  enlarged 
and  enriched  by  the  Christian  mode  of  feeling  and  looking 
at  things.  The  social  virtues  and  conscience  have  found 
their  appropriate  place  by  the  side  of  the  individualistic  ex- 
cellences. The  eighteenth  century  esteemed  Shaftesbury  very 
highly;  Herder  recommended  to  his  son  the  Inquiry  on 
Virtue  as  the  most  complete  and  best  system  of  morals. 
Georg  von  Gizycki's  opinion  is :  "  Shaftesbury's  system  is 
the  chief  system  of  English  ethics,  for  all  later  systems 
have,  in  reality,  merely  supplemented  and  developed  his  in 
particular  respects,  without,   however,  ever   attaining  to  its 

great  universality."  ^ 

6.  Hume's  Enquiry  concerning  the  Principles  of  Morals^ 
(1751)  is  conspicuous  not  so  much  for  the  originality  and 
depth  of  its  thoughts  as  for  the  clear,  subtle,  convincing  pre- 

1  [The  Fable  of  the  Bees,  or  Private  Vices  made  Public  Benefits,  1714.] 

2  Hume's  Ethics,  p.  17. 

3  [Edited  by  Selby-Bi^ge.  See  also  Green's  edition  of  Hume's  works.  Selec- 
tions  from  Hume's  ethical  writings  by  Hyslop.  Bibliography  in  Weber,  p.  417, 
note.  —  Tr.] 


190 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


191 


ii! 


til 


i 


I 


sentation  of  the  fundamental  theory  of  English  moral  phil- 
osophy just  set  forth.  Hume's  question  is  :  Why  are  certain 
characters  and  actions  pronounced  amiable  or  odious,  praise- 
worthy or  blamable  ?  He  finds,  after  taking  up  the  most 
important  ones  :  Such  qualities  are  praised  as  are  useful  or 
immediately  agreeable  to  others  or  ourselves  ;  their  opposites 
are  censured. 

Hume's  treatment  of  ethics  already  shows  an  inclination 
to  neglect  the  biological  for  the  purely  subjective  view,  and 
accordingly  to  substitute  satisfaction  for  preservation,  a  sub- 
jective standard  of  value  for  the  objective  one.  But  this 
tendency  becomes  still  more  pronounced  later  on,  under  the 
influence  of  one-sided  psychological  theories,  and  reaches 
its  climax  in  J.  Bentham,  who  declares:  Pleasure  is  in 
itself  a  good,  nay  the  only  good  ;  pain  is  in  itself  an  evil,  the 
only  evil.  Everything  else  is  good  only  in  so  far  as  it  conduces 
to  pleasure.  Pleasure  differs  only  in  intensity,  duration,  cer- 
tainty, propinquity,  fertility,  purity,  and  extent,  that  is,  the 
number  of  persons  to  whom  it  extends,  or  who  are  affected 
by  it.  The  absolute  goal  and  the  absolute  standard  of  all 
values  is,  therefore,  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number.  However,  Bentham  owes  his  importance  not  so 
much  to  his  work  in  theoretical  ethics  as  to  his  political  and 
legislative  reforms  ;  the  penal  law,  especially,  engaged  his 
attention.  The  principles  are  discussed  in  the  work :  Intro- 
duction to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,  1789.^ 

James  Mill  is  closely  and  also  personally  related  to  Ben- 
tham. He  deserves  mention  in  the  history  of  moral  philoso- 
phy on  account  of  his  acute  application  of  the  psychology  of 
association  to  the  explanation  of  moral  phenomena.^  The  will 
of  every  creature  primarily  aims  at  the  attainment  of  pleasure 
and  the  freedom  from  pain.  Gradually,  however,  things 
which  were  originally  desired  merely  as  means  come  to  be 

1  Also  found  in  the  first  volume  of  the  works,  edited  by  J.  Bowring,  1843. 

2  Analysis  of  the  Phenomena  of  Human  Mind,  2  vols.,  1829. 


directly  desired  through  association.  Avarice  furnishes  the 
classical  example.  Money  is  originally  valued  as  a  means, 
but  for  the  miser  it  has  become  an  end  in  itself,  the  idea  of 
possible  pleasure  which  it  procures  has  become  so  firmly 
associated  with  the  money  that  he  will  forgo  every  pleasure 
rather  than  part  with  a  fraction  of  his  gold.  In  the  same 
way  certain  modes  of  conduct  receive  absolute  value.  Praise 
and  admiration  arouse  feelings  of  pleasure ;  gradually  by 
association  we  love  the  modes  of  conduct  themselves  which 
are  praised,  the  desire  for  praise  is  transformed  into  the 
desire  for  the  praiseworthy ;  and  at  last  we  adhere  to  what  is 
praiseworthy,  even  when  the  praise  is  not  forthcoming,  nay 
when  it  is  threatened  with  obloquy  and  danger.  Self-sacri- 
fice is  explained  in  the  same  way,  only  here  we  have,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  love  of  honor,  also  sympathetic  emotions  which 
are  likewise  explained  by  processes  of  association.  —  These 
statements  are  not  without  an  element  of  truth  ;  but  they 
share  the  errors  common  to  the  entire  psychological  view 
from  which  they  have  been  derived :  they  regard  the  indi- 
vidual as  an  absolutely  independent  being  and  consequently 
his  relation  to  the  species  as  accidental  and  secondary,  while 
on  the  other  hand,  they  make  pleasure  the  starting-point,  in- 
stead of  impulse  or  will,  which  is  prior  to  pleasure  and  not 
first  produced  by  it.  But  to  this  subject  we  shall  recur 
later  on. 

John  Stuart  Mill,^  the  son  of  James  Mill ,  has  given  us 
in  his  treatise  on  Utilitarianism  (1863)  a  brief  but  compre- 
hensive exposition  of  the  principles  on  which  this  system  of 
ethics  is  based.  It  was  he  also  who  gave  the  school  the  name 
by  which  it  is  generally  known  in  England,  Utilitarianism. 
Moreover,  for  Mill  as  for  Bentham,  the  principle  of  utility  was 
the  guiding  principle  of  political  and  social  reforms.  And 
it  must  also  be  mentioned  that  Mill  was  greatly  influenced 
hj   Comte;    he  has  explained  his   relation  to  the   French 

1  [For  bibliography  see  Weber-Thilly,  p.  581,  note  2.  — Tr.] 


K 


192 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


MEDIAEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


193 


i>    It? 
It  ^ 


philosopher  in  the  admirable  monograph :  Auguste  Comte  and 

Positivism} 

Besides  utilitarianism  there  is  another  school  of  English 
moral  philosophy,  which  is  usually  called  intuitionalism. 
The  former  explains  the  distinctions  in  value  between 
human  modes  of  conduct  by  their  effects,  while  for  the  latter 
good  and  bad  are  absolute  qualities  of  human  acts,  which 
cannot  be  explained,  but  can  only  be  immediately  perceived 
and  determined.  Cudworth  2  and  Clarke  ^  advocate  this  theory 
against  Hobbes,  Whewell  *  against  Mill.  I  shall  consider  the 
truth  and  falsity  of  this  view  later  on. 

Moral  philosophy  has  received  a  new  impetus  from  the 
most  recent  development  of  the  biological  sciences.  The 
theory  of  evolution  carries  us  beyond  the  superficial  reflec- 
tions of  analytical  psychology  to  the  biological-historical 
conception :  the  preservation  and  development  of  life  is  the 
goal  at  which  the  will  aims,  not  pleasure  or  the  feeling  of 
satisfaction.  It  likewise  shows  the  insufficiency  of  the  rigid 
individualism  of  the  older  psychology  :  morality  represents 
the  experiences  of  the  race,  not  the  experience  of  the  individ- 
ual, with  respect  to  what  is  good  and  bad,  beneficial  and 
harmful.  Charles  Darwin^  has  made  an  attempt  at  moral 
philosophy  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  The   Descent   of  Man. 

1  Volume  IX.  of  the  collected  works.  [Other  adherents  of  this  school  are  :  A. 
Bain,  Mental  and  Moral  Science,  1868;  A.  Barratt,  Physical  Ethics,  1869; 
Hodgson,  Theory  of  Practice,  1870;  Fowler,  Progressive  Morality,  1884;  Fowler 
and  Wilson,  Principles  of  Morals,  1886-1887.  — William  Paley,  The  Principles  of 
Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  1785,  is  a  theological  utilitarian:  "Virtue  is  the 
doing  good  to  mankind,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of 
eternal  happiness."  —  Tr.] 

2  [Treatise  concerning  Eternal  and  Immutable  Morality,  1688.  —  Tr.] 

«  [Discourse  concerning  the  Unalterable  Obligations  of  Natural  Religion,  1708. 

^Tr.] 

*  [Elements  of  Morality,  1848  ;  last  edition,  1864.  To  the  same  school  belong 
siholl.CaUerwood,  Ilandbookof  Moral  Philosophy, 1872;  14th  edition,  1890;  Mar- 
tineau.  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  1885  ;  Porter,  Elements  of  Moral  Science,  1885. 

—  T».] 

6  [For  an  exposition  and  criticism  of  Darwin's  ethical  view,  see  Schurman,  The 
Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism.  See  also  in  this  connection,  Huxley,  Evolution  and 
Ethics,  1893.  — Tr.] 


Herbert  Spencer  gives  a  systematic  exposition  of  the  evolu- 
tionistic  view  in  his  Principles  of  Ethics,  Henry  Sidgwick 
{The  Methods  of  Ethics,  fourth  edition,  1890),  Leslie  Stephen 
(The  Science  of  Ethics,  1SS2),  and  S.  Alexander  (iI[foraZ  Order 
and  Progress,  1889)  have  also  been  influenced  by  this  theory. 
T.  H.  Green  {Tlie  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  1883)  and  J.  Macken- 
zie (^Manual  of  Ethics,  1891,  second  edition,  1895)  approxi- 
mate the  Kantian  view.^ 

7.  The  new  philosophy  was  introduced  into  Germany  by 
Leibniz,  and  formulated  into  a  system  by  Wolff.  It  obtained 
the  mastery  in  German  science  and  culture  in  the  course  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  driving  out  and  supplanting  scholas- 
tic philosophy,  which,  in  the  form  which  it  had  received  from 
Melanchthon,  became  the  prevailing  system  in  the  German 
universities  after  the  days  of  Humanism  and  the  Reformation. 
Wolff's  entire  philosophy  is  characterized  by  its  opposition 
to  the  scholastic-theological  treatment  of  things ;  this  antag- 
onism is  already  indicated  by  the  title  which  he  gives  his 
first  works  on  philosophical  subjects  ;  he  calls  them  Rational 
Thoughts,  o.  name  by  which  he  defies  the  entire  past.  The 
same  spirit  manifests  itself  in  his  ethics,  the  first  systematic 
edition  of  which  was  published  under  the  title,  Rational 
TJioughts  on  the  Actions  of  Men  for  the  Promotion  of  their 
Happiness  ^  (1720).  At  the  very  beginning,  the  fundamental 
concept  of  modern  philosophy,  the  concept  of  self-preservation, 
is  introduced  in  a  somewhat  modified  form  as  self-perfection, 
and  the  definition  given  :  That  is  good  "  which  makes  our  inner 
as  well  as  our  outer  state  perfect ; "  the  opposite  is  bad.  And 
emphatically  rejecting  a  theological  substructure  for  morals, 
he  adds  :  "  Inasmuch  as  the  free  acts  of  men  are  good  and  bad 

1  [With  these  two  may  also  be  classed  ;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies,  1876  ;  Dewey, 
Outlines  of  a  Critical  Theory  of  Ethics,  1891;  Muirhead,  Elements  of  Ethics,  1892, 
second  edition,  1895  ;  J.  Seth,  A  Study  of  Ethical  Principles,  1 896.  B.  P.  Bowne, 
Principles  of  Ethics,  1893,  is  a  follower  of  Lotze.  —  Tr.] 

2  Verniinflige  Gedanken  von  der  Menschen  Thun  und  Lassen  zur  Beforderung 
ihrer  Gluckseligkeit. 

18 


tit  'iW 


194 


ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


195 


«. 


because  of  their  effects,  and  what  follows  from  them  must 
necessarily  follow  and  cannot  fail,  they  are  good  or  bad  in  and 
for  themselves,  and  are  not  first  made  so  by  the  will  of  God/' 
In  §  12  the  most  general  formula  of  duty  is  then  stated : 
"Do  that  which  makes  you  and  your  state  and  that  of 
others  more  perfect,  refrain  from  that  which  makes  it  more 
imperfect ; "  and  in  §  21  follows  the  very  objectionable  state- 
ment that  an  atheist,  if  only  he  is  not  foolish,  and  clearly 
understands  the  nature  of  free  acts,  can  easily  be  a  virtuous 
man.  —  A  system  of  duties  is  then  deduced  from  the  above 
formula  in  more  than  a  thousand  paragraphs. 

8.  The  reign  of  Wolffian  philosophy  lasted  till  about  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Its  place  was  taken  by  the 
philosophy  of  I.  Kant.^  He  presents  his  system  of  mo- 
rality in  the  Foundation  of  the  Metaphi/sica  of  Morals  (1785) 
and  in  the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  (1788) ,2  which  was 
followed,  at  the  beginning  of  his  old  age,  by  the  Metaphysics 

of  Morals  (1797). 

Kant's  place  in  the  history  of  ethics  may  be  determined  by 
a  comparison  with  the  English  intuitionists :  his  ethics  is  a 
reaction  against  utilitarian  eudaemonism,  in  which  Wolff  and 
Hume,  the  rationalistic  and  empiristical  schools,  concurred. 
Kant  himself    was  at  first  an  eudaemonist ;  as  late  as  the 
year  1765  he  spoke  of  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson,  and  Hume 
as  authors  who  had  made  the  greatest  progress  in  the  dis- 
covery of  the  first  principles  of  morality,  and  to  whose  inves- 
tigations he  would  give  the  necessary  precision  and  supple- 
mentation in  his  lectures  ;   and  he  expressly  promised  to  base 
morality  upon  anthropology.    Just  as  his  critical  theory  of 
knowledge  was  a  reaction  against  his  own  empiricism,  which 
had  almost  carried  him  to  Hume's  standpoint,  so  his  critical 
ethics  was  a  reaction   against  his  own  empirical  eudaemon- 

1  [Cohen,  Kant's  Begriindung  der  Ethtk ;  Zeller,  tiber  das  Kantische  Moralprin- 
dp;  Schurman,  Kantian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution  ;  Porter,  Kant's  Ethics; 
Forster,  Der  Entwicklungsgang  der  Kantischen  Ethik  ;  Paulsen,  A'rt7J^— Tr.] 

2  [See  the  translation  of  Abbott,  fourth  edition,  London,  1889.  —  Tu.] 


ism.  The  complete  similarity  of  treatment  in  the  moral- 
philosophical  and  epistemological  problems,  which  by  the 
way  proved  fatal  to  Kant's  ethical  writings,  cannot  leave  us 
in  doubt  about  this  matter. 

The  fundamental  conceptions  are  as  follows.  —  Chief  among 
them  is  the  principle,  which  repudiates  all  eudaemonism  or 
utilitarianism,  that  the  moral  worth  of  acts  is  absolutely  in- 
dependent of  their  effects,  that  it  is  determined  solely  by  the 
disposition.  "  Nothing  can  possibly  be  conceived  in  the  world 
or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good  without  qualifica- 
tion, except  a  good  will."  "  A  good  will  is  good  not  because 
of  what  it  performs  or  effects,  not  by  its  aptness  for  the 
attainment  of  some  proposed  end,  but  simply  by  virtue  of 
the  volition ;  that  is,  it  is  good  in  itself."  With  these  propo- 
sitions Kant  begins  his  first  ethical  work,  which  we  men- 
tioned above. 

But  what  will  is  good  ?  Kant  answers :  A  will  is  good 
when  it  is  determined  not  by  a  material  purpose,  but  solely 
by  respect  for  duty :  "  the  pre-eminent  good  which  we  call 
moral  can  therefore  consist  in  nothing  else  than  the  concep- 
tion of  law  in  itself,  which  certainly  is  only  possible  in  a 
rational  being,  in  so  far  as  this  conception,  and  not  the  ex- 
pected effect,  determines  the  will." 

And  what  is  duty  ?  What  does  the  moral  law  command  ? 
—  It  commands,  stated  in  the  most  general  formula :  "  So  act 
that  the  maxim  of  the  act  may  conform  to  universal  law." 
That  is,  if  the  realm  of  human  conduct  or  freedom  were 
governed  by  universal  laws,  like  the  realm  of  nature  or 
causality,  then  this  maxim  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  one 
of  these  laws.  An  example  will  make  the  matter  clear.  A 
man  finds  himself  forced  by  necessity  to  borrow  money. 
He  knows  that  he  will  not  be  able  to  repay  it,  but  sees  also 
that  nothing  will  be  lent  to  him,  unless  he  promises  stoutly 
to  repay  it  in  a  definite  time.  Is  it  lawful  for  him  to  make 
the  promise  ?     He  can  tell  at  once  ;  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  ask 


196 


ORIGINS   OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


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197 


II 


himself  the  question  :  What  would  be  the  maxim  of  this  action 
expressed  as  a  universal  law  ?     Somewhat  as  follows  :  When 
a  man  is  in  want  of  money  and  cannot  obtain  it  except  by 
making  a  promise  which  he  knows  to  be  false,  he  may  do  so. 
Then  he  asks  himself  the  question  :   Is  this  maxim  suited  to 
be  a  natural  law  in  the  domain  of  human  action  ?     He  will 
at  once  see  that  it  could  never  hold  as  a  universal  law 
of  nature,  but  would  necessarily  contradict  itself.     For  sup- 
posing  it  to  be   a  universal  law   that  every  one  when  he 
thinks  himself  in  a  difficulty  should  be  able  to  promise  what- 
ever  he  pleases,  with  the  purpose  of  not  keeping  his  promise, 
the  promise  itself  would  become  impossible,  as  well  as  the 
end  that  one  might  have  in  view  in  it,  since  no  one  would 
believe    that   anything    was    promised    to   him,  but    would 
ridicule   all    such   statements    as    vain    pretences.      Hence 
falsehood  can  only  occur  as  an  exception,  not  as  a  rule  or 
law  of  nature  :   if  it  were  a  law  of  nature  that  every  one 
could,  every  time  it  were  to  his  advantage,  tell  a  falsehood, 
then  no   one  would  believe  any  one  else,  and   lying  would 
defeat  itself.     The  same  may  be  said  of  theft :  if  it  were  a 
law  of  nature  for  every  one  to  take  what  he  liked,  there  would 
be  no  property,  and  theft  would,  if  it  became  universal,  de- 
stroy  both  itself  and  property. 

Basing  himself  upon  this  process  of  logical  generalization 
as  the  criterion,  Kant  next  attempts  to  determine  particular 
duties,  or  rather  to  show  that  they  are  included  in  the  formula. 
It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  he  accomplishes  his  pur- 
pose only  by  the  most  violent  method  of  procedure,  —  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  afterward  makes  the  principle  somewhat 
more  elastic:   Act  so  that  thou  canst  will  as  a  rational  creature 
that  thy  maxim  become  a  universal  law  of  nature  for  conduct. 
By  means  of  barren  and  often  sophistical  arguments  he  finally 
succeeds  in  bringing  all  the  customary  moral  laws,  including 
the  duty  to  strive  for  the  perfection  of  self  and  the  happiness 
of  others,  under  the  formula.  —  His  undertaking  would  have 


proved  more  successful  had  he  changed  the  formula  as  follows : 
The  moral  laws  are  rules  which  are  adapted  to  a  natural  legis- 
lation of  human  life,  that  is,  rules  which,  if  they  governed 
conduct  as  natural  laws,  would  lead  to  the  preservation  and 
perfection  of  human  life.  And  in  a  certain  sense  this  is 
Kant's  meaning.  In  the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  the 
notion  of  a  "  kingdom  of  ends"  is  introduced  by  the  side  of 
the  kingdom  of  natural  causality ;  all  rational  creatures  are 
to  be  regarded  as  members  of  this  kingdom  of  ends  and  the 
moral  laws  as  its  laws  of  nature.  These  are  Leibnizian 
notions :  the  kingdom  of  nature  is  governed  by  physical- 
mechanical  laws,  the  kingdom  of  grace  by  teleological-ethical 
laws.  Had  Kant  made  these  notions  the  cornerstones  of  his 
system,  his  ethics  would  have  been  more  fruitful. 

After  all,  ethics  has  not  a  very  serious  function  to  perform, 
according  to  Kant.  It  is  not  its  business  to  prescribe  what 
ought  to  be  done,  for  every  one  knows  in  every  case,  without 
all  science,  what  duty  is.  Nor  must  it  give  reasons  for 
duties  ;  there  is  absolutely  no  reason  why  we  should  act  thus 
or  so ;  the  commands  are  categorical,  not  hypothetical ;  if 
there  were  a  reason  for  them,  tliey  would  be  conditionally 
true.  All  that  ethics  has  to  do  is  to  collect  the  commands  of 
duty,  to  arrange  them,  and  to  embrace  them  under  a  univer- 
sal formula.  When  a  reviewer  censured  Kant  for  not  set- 
ting up  a  new  principle,  but  only  a  new  formula,  the  latter 
did  not  regard  this  as  a  fault :  "  Who,"  he  says  in  his  preface 
to  the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason^  "  would  think  of  intro- 
ducing a  new  principle  of  all  morality,  just  as  if  the  whole 
world  before  him  were  ignorant  what  duty  was  ?  But  who- 
ever knows  of  what  importance  to  a  mathematician  a  formula 
is,  will  not  make  little  of  the  value  of  my  moral  formula." 
Only,  Kant  should  have  compared  his  formula  with  the  max- 
ims of  the  jurists,  for  the  moral  formula  by  no  means  accom- 
plishes what,  according  to  the  statements  in  the  preface,  the 
mathematician's  formula  accomplishes,  which  defines  accur- 
ately what  is  to  be  done  to  work  a  problem. 


•II 


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199 


5 

1^ 


How  did  Kant  reach  this  formalistic  view  ?  In  the  first 
place,  he  was  undoubtedly  influenced  by  the  analogy  of 
a-prioristic  rationalism  in  his  theory  of  knowledge.  The 
schema  of  natural  philosophy  —  that  the  reason  prescribes 
laws  to  nature,  which  possess  absolute  universality,  regardless 
of  the  matter  of  sense-perception  —  is  carried  over  into  moral 
philosophy :  the  practical  reason  prescribes  laws  to  the  will 
which  possess  absolute  universality,  regardless  of  the  matter 
of  sensuous  desire.  —  But  we  may,  perhaps,  also  discover 
material  reasons,  reasons  based  on  feeling,  which  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  his  view.  Two  facts  may  be  mentioned,  one 
positive,  the  other  negative  ;  the  former,  the  degeneration  of 
eudaemonism  into  a  weakly  sentimental  praise  of  virtue; 
the  latter,  the  influence  of  Rousseau. 

One  of  the  numerous  moral  periodicals  of  the   preceding 
century  —  it  had  been  published  in  Leipsic  since  1745  under 
the   title,  Ergetzungen   der  vernunftigen  Seele   aus  der   Sit- 
tenlehre  und  der  Gelehrsamkeit  uberhaupt  —  contained  in  its 
fifth  volume,  which  was  dedicated  to  the  Prime   Chancellor 
Cocceji,  an  essay  entitled  :  Proof  that  the  Virtues  are  Pleasant 
and  Charming.    In  this  we  read :  "  Proper  satisfaction  with 
one's  self  is  the  greatest  happiness  which  a  thinking  being  can 
procure.      Unless   a  man   be   a   monster,  he    will  feel  how 
charming  is   a  virtuous  deed   which   springs   from  love  of 
humanity  ;  I  at  least  have   so  tender  a  soul  that  I  do  not 
possess  the   power  to   suppress   my   feelings   even   when   I 
resolve  not  to  give  way  to  them.     When  I  read  books  which 
vividly  describe  a  virtuous  act  inspired  by  the  love  of  human- 
ity, my  soul  is  often  carried  away  by  such  emotions,  against 
its   will."     The   author   gives   examples   from    Marianne   of 
Marivaux,  and  then  continues :  "  If  the  narrow  space  at  our 
command  permitted  us  to  consider  the  particular  virtues  in 
detail,  we  should  find  how  pleasant  and  charming  each  one  is. 
How  charming  is  affability  !     Nothing  is  more  pleasant  than 
humility,"  etc.     In  the  same  way  it  is  shown  that  the  vices 


are  ridiculous,  unpleasant,  troublesome,  and  detestable.  In 
conclusion,  the  author  asks  the  clergy  to  exhort  their  congrega- 
tions to  perform  virtuous  acts  by  showing  how  charming  they 
are,  and  anticipates  great  results  from  such  a  method. 

These  are  the  thoughts  of  English  moral  philosophy  in 
tasteless  popular  form.  Moreover,  even  Hutcheson,  in  his 
elaborate  text-book,  a  German  translation  of  which  appeared  in 
1756  under  the  title.  System  der  Moralphilosophie,  often  mani- 
fests an  alarming  tendency  to  speak  in  this  strain ;  he,  too, 
has  much  to  say  of  the  pleasure  of  being  happy.  And  so 
Gellert  hopes,  in  his  lectures  on  moral  philosophy,  as  the 
introductory  lecture  declares,  to  be  able  to  assist  his  hearers 
in  realizing  virtue,  that  is,  their  highest  welfare.  "  Would 
that  I  might  feel  this  zeal  keenly  as  often  as  I  appear  before 
you,  and  would  that  it  might  make  me  eloquent  in  represent- 
ing to  you  the  duties  of  morality  as  the  most  charming  and 
most  sacred  laws  of  our  welfare."  ^ 

Let  us  suppose  that  Kant  read  the  aforesaid  essay  in  the 
Ergetzungen  der  vernunftigen  Seele, or  a  similar  one.  In  that 
case  we  can  readily  understand  his  emphatic  repudiation  of 
those  who  desired  to  serve  as  "  volunteers  of  duty,"  and  his 
sharp  accentuation  of  the  opposition  between  the  moral  law 
and  the  inclinations.  A  passage  like  the  celebrated  apos- 
trophe to  duty  —  "  Duty,  thou  sublime  and  mighty  name  that 
dost  embrace  nothing  charming  or  insinuating,  but  requirest 
submission,  what  origin  is  there  wortliy  of  thee,  and  where 
is  there  to  be  found  the  root  of  thy  noble  descent  which 
proudly  rejects  all  kindred  with  the  inclinations  ?  "  —  such  a 
passage  sounds  like  an  answer  to  that  sentimental  praise 
of  the  charms  of  virtue  which  Kant  could  not  but  regard  as 
a  repulsive  prostitution.  —  And  this  is  surely  a  merit  of 
Kant's  which  ought  not  to  be  underestimated.  He  revived  in 
the  hearts  of  the  moral  preachers  the  strong  consciousness 
of   the   law  of  duty,  which  they  had   almost   lost  by   their 

I  Collected  Works,  1770,  vol.  VI.,  p.  3. 


t 


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ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


201 


III 


I  f  I 


I 


efforts  to  allure  and  to  charm,  and  thereby  rendered  a  ser- 
vice, not  to  the  science  of  ethics,  it  is  true,  but  towards  the 
education  of  his  people. 

The   second  impetus  was  positive  in  character;  it  came 
from  Rousseau.     It  is  well  known  in  what  high  esteem  the 
latter  was  held  by  Kant.     What  attracted  Kant  to  Rousseau  ? 
He  himself  tells  us  in  a  passage  that  reads  like  a  note  from 
a  diary :  "  I  am  myself  an  investigator  from  inclination.     I 
feel  the  intensest  craving  for  knowledge,  and  the  eager  im- 
patience to  make  some  progress  in  it,  as  well  as  satisfaction 
with  every  step  in  advance.     There    was  a  time  when  I 
believed  that  all  this  might  redound  to  the  honor  of  mankind, 
and  I  despised  the  rabble  which  knew  nothing.      Rousseau 
has  set  me  right.     This  boasted  superiority  has  vanished  ;  I 
am  learning  to  respect  mankind,  and  I  should  regard  myself 
as  much  more  useless  than  the  common  laborers,  did  I  not 
believe  that  this  reflection  [occupation  ?]  could  give  a  value  to 
all  other  occupations  [namely  scientific-literary  works,]  that  is, 
re-establish  the  rights  of  huraanityr     To  re-establish  the  rights 
of  mankind,  then,  of  the  common  people— this  he  regards  as  his 
true  mission  and  his  work.    The  worth  of  a  man  depends  on  his 
will,  not  on  his  knowledge,  as  aristocratic  and  self -conceited  cul- 
ture believes ;  —  that  is  the  cardinal  doctrine  upon  which  Kant's 
entire  philosophy  really  turns.     And  here  Rousseau  helped 
him  ;  he  taught  him  —  and  for  this  he  was  thankful  —  not  to 
overestimate  culture,  science,  in  short,  civilization  ;  he  showed 
him  that  goodness  of  heart  and  purity  of  thought  were  not 
confined  to  the   most  educated   and   most   aristocratic,  that 
simple  and  strong  dutifulness  might  be  found  just  as  often, 
perhaps   oftener,   among   the    lowliest.      Kant   is    following 
Rousseau  when  he  speaks  "  of  the  masses  who  are  worthy  of 
our  respect."     In  this  way  alone  his  scientific  activity,  which 
he  had  formerly  regarded  as  possessing  absolute  worth,  re- 
ceived its  true  value  in  his  eyes :  he  could  preach  this  great 
truth  and  thus  assist  in  establishing  the  rights  of  mankind, 


the  rights  of  the  masses,  who  are  commonly  despised  as  the 
rabble,  on  account  of  their  lack  of  education.  And  here  we  are 
also  reminded  of  the  fact  that  Kant  himself  once  belonged  to 
these  masses  by  birth,  however  far  he  may  have  risen  above 
them;  his  parents  were  small  tradespeople,  without  educa- 
tion; but  his  father  was  a  true  and  upright  man,  and  his 
mother  a  woman  full  of  practical  piety.    Kant's  democratic 

views  —  not  his  political  creed,  but  his  love  of  the  people 

were  evidently  rooted  in  the  memories  of  his  youth  and  the 
admiration  which  he  felt  for  his  parents. 

With  all  this  his  opposition  to  eudaemonistic  morality  had 
something  to  do.  It  is  the  latter  which  gives  rise  to  those 
false  standards,  when  for  instance,  as  in  Wolff's  system,  it 
sets  up  self-perfection  as  ihQ  absolute  goal.  According  to 
Wolff,  a  man's  worth  depends  upon  his  perfection,  upon  his 
culture,  learning,  and  taste.  This  view,  which  by  the  way 
was  not  peculiar  to  the  eighteenth  century,  but  is  presumably 
more  common  in  our  days  than  at  any  former  time  —  for 
when  has  education  counted  for  so  much  as  at  present? — ^ 
his  view,  which  Kant  had  once  accepted  as  a  follower  of 
Wolffian  ethics,  now  alienated  him  from  all  eudasmonism 
and  carried  him  to  the  other  extreme  :  nothing  in  this  world 
is  good  except  the  good  will  alone. 

To  have  emphasized  this  was  also  a  great  merit  of  Kant's, 
not  so  much,  however,  a  merit  of  the  moral  philosopher  as  of 
the  moral  preacher.  It  was  the  renewal  of  the  great  truth  of 
Christianity,  that  before  God  man  is  judged  not  for  what  he 
has,  but  for  what  he  is :  a  truth  which  every  one  should  make 
it  his  daily  task  to  learn. 

9.  The  revolution  in  moral  philosophy  caused  by  Kant 
coincided  with  a  change  in  the  German  conception  of  life. 
The  ideal  of  the  illumination  —  utility  for  society  —  was 
superseded  by  the  ideal  of  Goethe's  age,  perfection  of  the 
personality.  In  classical  poetry,  especially  in  the  poetry  of 
Goethe,  this  ideal  was  everywhere  at  work  as  the  goal  and  the 


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202  ORIGINS  OF  MOKAL  PHILOSOPHY 

standard.     Here,  too,  Rousseau's  influence  was  felt.     The  in- 
dividual shall  not  be  the  slave  of  conventional  circumstances 
nnd  views,  his  education  shall  not,  as  is  now  actually  the 
case,  consist  in  training  him  for  the  r6le  which  he  has  to  play 
iu  society ;  the  natural  capacities  must  be  developed  from 
within  and  freely  exercised  according  to  the  needs  of  the  indi- 
viduality-that  was  the  gist  of  the  sermon  which  Rousseau, 
especially  in  the  £mile,  preached  to  his  contemporaries  with 
such  passionate  force.     Goethe,  too,  and  Herder  and  Schiller 
and  all  of  the  strongest  and  freest  minds  gave  heed  to  his 
warning.    Another    sermon  was    preached,   that  of    l.reek 
antiquitv ;  neo-Humanism,  as  opposed  to  the  older  classicism 
also  called  the  age  back  to  freedom  and  to  nature.    And 
the  Greek  ideal  of  life,  which  was  now  revived,  is  an  aesthet- 
ical  rather  than  a  practical  ideal ;  not  general  utility,  but  the 
perfection  and  the  manifestation  of  the  personality  is  the 
function  of  the  free  man  ;  a  slave  serves  merely  by  his  work 
and  the  products  of  his  work.    This  view  reached  its  climax  in 
Romanticism  ;  its  programme  was  to  despise  utility  and  prose, 
to  worship  the  individual  and  poetry,  in  literature  and  in  life 

Kant  bears  a  dual  relation  to  this  movement :  he  is  bo  h 
friendly  and  hostile  to  it.    He  agrees  with  it  in  rejecting  utili- 
tarianism and  eudamonism.     On  the  other  hand,  the  worship 
of  the  individual,  which  always  leads  to  a  contempt  for  com- 
mon morality,  would  undoubtedly  have  been  extremely  dis- 
tasteful to  him;  he  was  not  at  all  attracted  to  the  gemus  who 
will  acknowledge  no  law  as  binding  upon  himself.     These 
two  phases  plainly  appear  in  Schiller's    relation    to    Kant. 
The  matter  is  clearly   and   distinctly   brought    out  in  the 
treatise  Vher  Anmuth  und  Wurde,  in  the  passage  in  which 
Schiller  develops  the  notion  of  the  beautiful  soul     He  first 
emphasizes  as  the  great  merit  of  the  immortal  author  of  the 
Kritik  that  he  has  again  restored  the  healthy  reason  by 
separating  it  from  the  (falsely)  philosophizing  reason,  and 
has  made  duty  and  morality  wholly  independent  of  inclination 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


203 


and  interest.  "  However,"  he  continues,  "  though  I  am  thor- 
oughly convinced  that  the  association  of  inclination  with  a  free 
act  proves  nothing  in  regard  to  the  pure  dutifulness  of  that 
act,  I  believe  that  we  can  infer  from  this  very  fact  that  the 
moral  perfection  of  man  depends  solely  upon  the  part  which 
inclination  plays  in  his  moral  conduct."  Kant  became  the 
"  Draco  of  his  age,  because  his  age  did  not  seem  to  him  to  be 
worthy  of  a  Solon  or  capable  of  receiving  him.  But  what 
had  the  children  of  the  household  done  that  he  cared  only 
for  the  servants  ?  "  The  children  of  the  household,  however, 
are  those  beautiful  souls  "  in  whom  the  moral  sense  has 
gained  such  control  over  all  the  feelings  that  it  may  without 
fear  abandon  to  the  affections  the  government  of  the  will, 
and  never  run  the  danger  of  contradicting  its  decrees.  Hence 
it  is  not  really  this  or  that  particular  act  which  is  moral  in  a 
beautiful  soul,  but  the  entire  character." 

The  correction  which  Schiller  makes  in  the  Kantian  ethics 
is  in  itself  admirable  and  necessary,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
it  can  be  reconciled  with  the  principles  of  the  system.  At 
any  rate,  it  would  have  been  much  easier  to  deduce  Schiller's 
views  from  Shaftesbury's  presuppositions.  It  is  certainly 
not  according  to  the  Konigsberg  philosopher's  way  of  looking 
at  things,  for  he  has  a  keener  sense  for  the  correctness  and 
exactness  of  the  jurist  than  for  the  freedom  and  beauty  of 
the  poet. 

10.  Now  as  for  the  progress  of  ethics  in  Germany  after 
Kant,  we  cannot  but  regard  Kant's  reaction  in  favor  of  in- 
tuitionism  as  a  disturbance,  the  effects  of  which  have  not 
yet  been  overcome  in  philosophy ;  from  that  time  on  the  Ger- 
mans have  been  constantly  experimenting  with  new  prin- 
ciples, often  completely  neglecting  the  results  of  historical 
development.  Everybody's  first  and  chief  concern  was  to 
produce  a  new  system,  for  to  have  one's  own  system  was  the 
mark  of  a  philosopher. 

Speculative  Philosophy  was  the  direct  historical  successor  of 


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204  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  Kantian  philosophy,  although,  in  many  respects,  it  com- 
pletely contradicted  its  source:  the  scientific  arrogance  which 
Kant  regarded  it  as  his  mission  to  overcome,  m  order  to 
establish  the  rights  of  humanity,"  never  flourished  so  luxuri- 
antly as  in  the  systems  of  Schelling  and  Hegel. 

In  ethics  Speculative  Philosophy  abandons  all  previous  con- 
ceptions.    Ethics  had  arisen  as  the  science  of  right  conduct. 
For  such  a  practical  discipline  Speculative  Philosophy  sub- 
stitutes the  theoretical  contemplation  and  conceptual  con- 
struction  of  mental-historical  life.    Ethics  becomes  mental 
science  or  philosophy  of  history ;  it  becomes  a  companion- 
piece  to  natural  philosophy.     Just  as  the  latter,  fo  lowing  the 
Kantian  conception  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  laws  of  our 
understanding,  constructs  nature  or  the  sphere  of  causality  a 
priori,  so  the  former  constructs  history  or  the  sphere  of  free- 
dom a  priori. 

Of  recent  years,  men  who  are  far  from  accepting  its  prin- 
ciples, as,  for  example,  Wundt  and  Jodl,  have  shown  a  high 
regard  for  Speculative  Philosophy,  not  usual  in  former  times. 
Wundt  expresses  the  opinion,  in  the  preface  of  his  Mhos, 
that  the  attempts  which  he  makes  to  approximate  the  funda- 
mental notions  of  Speculative  Philosophy  in  his  ethics,  will 
also  be  made  in  other  fields  of  philosophical  inquiry.     Per- 
haps we  may  see  herein,  first  of  all,  a  sign  that  this  phil- 
osophy has  almost  become  historical  in  Germany.     If  instead 
of  leading  a  retired  life  in  dusty  books,  it  were  an  active 
living  rival  for  the  control  of  our  thoughts,  the  attitude  of 
these  thinkers  would  presumably  be  an  entirely  different  one 
Nor  is  that  which  meets  their  approval  in  these  systems  what 
the   systems   themselves   extolled    as  their  peculiar  merit: 
namely,  the  method  of  «  scientific  "  deduction  and  demonstra- 

The  idealistic-monistic  conception  of  the  universe  is  an  old 
philosophical  heritage,  and  not  merely  a  product  of  the  Spec- 
ulative  Philosophy  and  its  method.    Nay,  perhaps  it  might  be 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


205 


shown  that  this  method  has  contributed,  in  no  small  degree, 
to  the  contempt  in  which  that  conception  has  been  held  in 
Germany  during  the  last  half  of  the  century.  The  peculiar 
characteristic  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  is  its  contempt  for 
the  causal  investigation  of  things,  and  its  substitution  of  the 
conceptual-logical  method ;  which  is  equivalent  to  despising 
science  itself,  for  all  science,  with  the  exception  of  mathe- 
matics, which  is  not  a  science  of  facts,  aims  at  the  discovery 
of  causal  connections.  The  same  may  be  said  of  practical 
philosophy ;  its  method  of  investigation  is  the  teleological 
method,  the  inversion  of  the  causal  investigation.  And 
exactly  the  same  unfruitfulness  which  characterizes  specula- 
tive physics  characterizes  speculative  ethics.  Take  Hegel's 
Naturrecht  ^  (1821)  and  its  empty  juggling  with  concepts ; 
the  investigation  of  institutions  and  forms  from  the  stand- 
point of  their  effects  upon  human  life  is  ridiculed  as  a  shallow 
argumentation  of  the  understanding ;  instead,  the  reader 
receives  the  simple  assurance:  It  follows  from  the  concept 
of  the  state,  or  of  the  right,  or  of  the  monarchy.  And  with 
this  is  connected  the  extreme  reverence  which  these  thinkers 
have  for  the  forms  of  historical  life,  for  the  state,  for  the 
right :  as  though  these  forms  and  not  the  concrete  personal 
life  which  thrives  in  them  were  the  thing  of  absolute  worth ! 
The  underrating  of  what  Kant  regards  as  the  truly  moral 
element,  the  good  will,  likewise  connects  itself  with  this. 

11.  Instead  of  giving  a  detailed  account  of  Hegel,  let  me 
set  forth  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  ethics  of  Schleier- 
macher,  so  far  as  that  can  be  done  briefly .^ 

1  [Selections  from  this  work  translated  by  Sterrett  under  the  title,  The  Ethic* 
of  Hegel.     For  bibliography  see  Weber-Thilly,  pp.  496-7.— Tr.] 

2  Entwurf  eines  Systems  der  Stttenlehre  (Sketch  of  a  System  of  Morals),  edited 
from  his  literary  remains  by  A.  Schweitzer,  1835 ;  a  few  academic  treatises  in 
the  second  volume  of  the  philosophical  writings.  Die  christliche  Sitte  nach  den 
Grnndsdtzen  der  evangel ischen  Kirche  (Christian  Morals  according  to  the  Prin- 
ciples of  the  Ei'angelical  Church),  edited  by  L.  Jonas,  1843,  discusses  the  same 
topics,  often  more  concretely  and  fruitfully  than  the  philosophical  ethics  [Die 
philosophische  Ethik^  edited  by  Twesten], 


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206  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

In  a  treatise  discussing  the  difference  between  the  natural 
and  the  moral  law,  Schleiermacher  advances  the  view  that 
the  theory  is  inadequate  which  regards  the  moral  laws  as 
merely    prescribing    what    ought    to   be,  for    xn    that  case 
ethics  would  be  a  science  of  the  non-existent;  but  just  as 
the  natural  law  is  the  expression  of  the  behavior  of  somethmg 
real,  the  moral  law  must  represent  an  actual  occurrence  - 
This  real  thing  is  the  effect  of  reason  upon  nature     Nature 
and  reason,  so  the  Sittenlehre  teaches,  material  and  spiritual 
being,  constitute  the  greatest  antithesis  within  the  sphere  of 
universal  reality ;   the  former   is  the  object  of  all   natura  - 
scientific,  the  latter  the  object  of  all  mental-scientific,  knowl- 
edge.    All   knowledge  is  twofold  in  form:    speculative   or 
contemplative,  and  empirical  or  observational.    Thus  Schlei- 
ermacher  obtains  the  fourfold  classification :   contemplative 
knowledge  of  nature,  or  doctrine  of  nature  (physics)  ;  obser- 
vational knowledge  of  nature,  or  natural   history ;  contem- 
plative knowledge  of  the  action  of  reason,  or  the  science  of 
morals  (ethics) ;  and  observational  knowledge  of  the  action 
of  reason,  or  the  science  of  history.    Ethics,  therefore,  bears 
the  same  relation  to  history  as  speculative  physics  to  the 
science  of  nature  or  cosmography :  it  defines  in  general  the 
action  of  reason  upon  nature,  which  the  science  of  history 

investigates  in  detail.^ 

The  action   of  reason  upon  nature   may  be   regarded  as 

two-f  old :    as   organizing  and  sr/mholizing.     By   acting   upon 

thin-s  reason  makes  them  the  instruments  of  new  effects. 

But  In  so  far  as  it  gives  a  thing  form  by  means   of  every 

effect,  reason  makes  the  thing  its  symbol,  in  which  it  ex- 

presses  itself  and  through  which  it  is  recognized.^    There  is 

another  antithesis :  reason  exists  and  acts  in  individuals  as 

one  and  the  same  and  on  the  other  hand  as  a  pecuhar  and 

individually  distinct  reason.     This   antithesis   runs   parallel 

with  the  one  mentioned  above,  and  so  we  again  have  the 

1  §§  58  ff.  *  §§  124  ff. 


MEDIEVAL   AND   MODERN   SYSTEMS 


207 


favorite  fourfold  division :  the  activity  of  reason  is  identical 
and  individual ;  it  is  identical  and  differentiated  organization 
and  likewise  symbolization.^     But  these   antitheses   are  not 
mutually  exclusive,  but  so  many  points  of  view  from  each 
of  which  everything  moral  may  be  viewed.     Now,  in  so  far 
as  identical  organization  takes  place,  those  goods  arise  which 
each  one  may  employ  as  the  instruments  of  the  activity  of 
reason  in  the  same  manner:  they  constitute  the  sphere  of 
intercourse  ;  this  is  the  field  ruled  by  the  law  and  the  state.  — 
In  so  far  as  the  formative  activity  is  individual  or  peculiar, 
it  gives  rise  to  property^  not  to  juridical  property,  which  also 
embraces  exchangeable   commodities,  but  to   real   property, 
which   cannot  be  separated  from   the  person  who  has   pro- 
duced it  without  losing  its  value.     The  narrowest  sphere  of 
property   in   this   sense   is   one's   own  body ;  the   next   the 
encircling   home,  which  includes  the  objective  environment 
belonging  to  the  person,  and  is  the  more  valuable  the  more 
individual  and  inalienable  it  is.     In  so  far  as  the  home  is 
opened  to  others  for  participation,  hospitality  arises,  corre- 
sponding to  intercourse  in  the  sphere  of  identical  organization. 
The  symbolizing  activity,  in  so  far  as  it  occurs  under  the 
character  of  identity,  is  knowledge^  which  manifests  itself  in 
language.    The  social  form  in  which  it  is  produced  is  the 
academy.     The  place  of  intercourse  is  the  school.     The  sym- 
bolizing activity,  in  so  far  as  it  occurs  under  the  character 
of  differentiation  or  individuality,  \s  feeling.     It  at  first  mani- 
fests itself  in  gestures  and  in  intonation ;  it  expresses  itself 
in  a  general  way  in  the  work  of  art.     Art  bears  the  same 
relation  to  religion  that  language  bears  to  knowledge ;  the 
social  form  in  which  religion,  the  manifestation  of  the  uni- 
verse in  feeling,  is  communicated,  is  the   church,  —  In  the 
same  manner  the  entire  field  of  morality  is  then  defined  as 
the  doctrine  of  virtue  and  the  doctrine  of  duty^  while  the  part 
just  discussed  is  called  the  doctrine  of  goods. 

1  §  133. 


208  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  wonderful  skill  with  which  Schleiermacher,  not  unlike 
a  far-seeing  chess  virtuoso,  moves  his  concepts  around,  until 
the  whole  of  reality  is  surrounded  and  checkmated  as  it  were, 
has  something  fascinating  in  it  when  one  follows  his  moves 
with  credulous  and  patient  attention:  it  is  really  wonderful 
to  see  how  apparently  the  most  remote  things,  obedient  to 
the  will  of  the  master,  readily  submit  themselves  to  the  most 
surprising  arrangements  and  relations  which  the  magic  wand 
of  his  dialectics  assigns  to  them.     But  after  turning  one  8 
back  upon  the  game  and  again  looking  at  the  real  world,  one 
is  apt  to  feel  that  no  permanent  gain  results  from  the  labor 
put  forth :   the  whole  thing  is  merely  an  ingenious  game. 
Lotze  concludes  his  exposition  of  Schleiermacher' s  esthetics 
with  the  words :  « If  it  be  praised  as  a  model  of  acute  dia- 
lectics, I  hope  that  the  predilection  for  this  sort  of  perforni- 
ances,  which  take  no  real  interest  in  the  essence  of  the  subject, 
but  become  logical  exercises,  and  portray  anamorphotically 
distorted  pictures  from  their  obstinately  chosen  secondary 
standpoints,  will   gradually  disappear  in  Germany.        This 
hope  was  realized  even  before  it  was  expressed. 

12    The  moral  philosophy  of  J.  F.  Herbart,  presented  in 
outline  in  the  General  Practical  Philosophy^  (1808),  forms  a 
complete  antithesis  to  the  speculative  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject, in  80  far  as  it  wholly  separates  ethics  from  the  theoreti- 
cal sciences,  from  metaphysics  and  anthropology.    However, 
it  also  agrees  with  the  speculative  method  in  that  it  wholly 
abandons  the  old  form  of  investigation  ;  it  makes  ethics  sub- 
sidiary  to  aesthetics.     Herbart  assumes  the  standpoint  of  the 
pure  observer :  human  acts  and  motives  arouse  in  the  specta- 
tor feelings  of  pure  aesthetic  pleasure  and  displeasure ;  these 
are   absolutely  independent   of  his  interest:   be  may   as   a 
spectator  be  pleased  with  the  act  which  from  the  standpoint 
of  his  interest  he  despises ;  in  so  far  he  calls  it  morally  good ; 

1  History  of  Esthetics,  p.  166. 

2  Allgemeine  praktische  Philosophic. 


MEDIJEVAL   AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


209 


and  he  may,  conversely,  call  bad  what  pleases  and  tempts  him 
as  an  appetitive  being.  —  General  aesthetics  has  further  con- 
vinced Herbart  that  particular  elements  as  such  never  please 
or  displease,  but  always  as  relations.  And  so  he  comes  to  ask 
the  question  which  constitutes  the  problem  of  ethics :  What 
relations  of  the  will  please  or  displease  us  ?  He  discovers  five 
such  fundamental  relations  :  (1)  The  harmony  between  the 
will  and  the  moral  judgment  of  the  same  person ;  (2)  The 
greater  by  the  side  of  the  smaller,  the  stronger  will  by  the  side 
of  the  weaker ;  (3)  The  harmony  between  the  wills  of  two 
persons,  —  all  these  relations  please  us.  (4)  The  conflict 
between  two  wills  displeases  us,  while  (5)  The  requiting  of 
good  with  good  and  evil  with  evil  pleases  us.  Herbart  then 
adorns  these  pleasing  relations  with  the  name  of  ideas :  ideas 
of  inner  freedom,  of  perfection,  of  benevolence,  of  law,  of 
justice,  and  bases  upon  them  the  forms  of  collective  life :  the 
legal  order,  the  wage  system,  the  administrative  system,  the 
system  of  civilization,  the  animated  society. 

I  shall  refrain  from  criticising  tliis  conception  of  the  moral 
phenomena.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  as  futile  in  its  general  aspects 
as  it  is  forced  and  laborious  in  the  details.  Herbart's  in- 
ability to  appreciate  the  real  and  the  living,  liis  incapacity 
for  constructing  a  unified  system  of  thought,  which,  by  the 
way,  is  partly  due  to  his  aversion  to  the  speculative  philosophy 
of  his  contemporaries  and  their  extreme  monistic  tendencies, 
is  nowhere  so  pronounced  and  intolerable  as  in  his  attempt 
to  break  up  ethics  into  this  conglomeration  of  so-called  ideas. 

13.  A.  Schopenhauer  1  presents  his  conception  of  life  in 
the  fourth  book  of  the  World  as  Will  and  Idea ;  ^  he  makes 
an  attempt  to  construct  a  moral  philosophy  in  his  essay  on 
the  Foundation  of  Morals,  which,  together  with  the  treatise 
on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  was  published  in  1841  under  the 
title  :   The  Two  Fundamental  Problems  of  Fthics.     The  first 

1  [For  bibliography  see  Weber-Thilly,  p.  544.] 

2  [Translation  by  Haldane  and  Kemp.] 

14 


\ 


II  m 


210  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

volume  of  the  Parerga  and  Faralipomena  contains  Aphorisms 
on  Worldly  Wisdom,  which,  though  full  of  acute  observations, 
is  not  in  accord    with  the  principles  of  his  system.      The 
system  rests  upon  the  pessimistic  view  of  life.     Life  is  sin 
and  suffering,  and  not  to  live  is  therefore  better  than  to  live. 
Selfishness,  intensified  in  malice,  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
natural  will.    This  mode  of  conduct  is  overcome  in  compas- 
sion.    In  so  far  as  pity  is  the  motive  of  action,  it  has  moral 
worth.    An  act  is  called  good  when  it  has  as  its  motive 
compassion  for    the   sufferings    of    others,  bad,   when  the 
agent  rejoices  at  the  woe  of  others,  or  at  least  attempts  to 
promote  his  own  welfare  at  the  expense  of  that  of  others. 
The  disappearance  of  the  impulses  which  aim  at  individual 
welfare  consequently  is  favorable  to  moral  progress.     In  the 
saints  of  Christianity  and  Buddhism  the  selfish  impulses  are 
entirely  suppressed,  and  their  hearts  thus  opened   to  pity  ; 
they  themselves  are  unaffected  by  suffering,  disappomtment, 
fear,  anxiety,  and  want;  with  deep  sympathy  they  view  their 
brothers  who  are  still  fighting  the  useless  battle  for  the  vain 

goods  of  this  world. 

I  do  not  wish  to  enter  upon  a  criticism  of  this  theory  at 
this  point ;  we  shall  find  an  opportunity  for  that  later  on. 
But  I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words  with  respect  to  Schopen- 
hauer's personal  relation  to  the  morality  of  his  system. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  there  is  no  harmony 

between   Schopenhauer's  system  and  his  life.     The  system 

recommends  renunciation  of  the  world  and  negation  of  the 

will-to-live ;  his  life  shows  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  he  does  not 

lead  the  life  of  an  ascetic  saint  but  ot  an  Epicurean,  who 

makes  a  study  of  good  living;  look  at  the  list  of  good  thmgs 

which  he  placed  before  his  will  as  motives  when,  after  leav- 

in-  Berlin,  he  was  casting  about  for  a  permanent   place  of 

residence,  and  was  wavering  between  Frankfort  and  Mann- 

hcim.i    In  his  system  he  praises  compassion ;  but  he  seems 

1  Gwinner.  Schopenhauer's  Life,  2d  edition,  p.  391. 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


211 


to  have  been  rather  devoid  of  this  feeling  himself.  No  one 
ever  pursued  his  literary  opponents  more  unmercifully  than 
did  Schopenhauer.  We  may  say  he  was  actuated  by  the 
love  of  truth,  and  regarded  his  adversaries  as  the  enemies  of 
truth.  Let  us  grant  it,  let  us  say  that  this  was  one  of  the 
motives,  although  it  does  not  justify  the  aspersions  which  he 
cast  upon  their  characters.  But  think  of  his  behavior  towards 
his  mother  and  his  sister,  when  they  were  in  danger  of  losing 
their  fortune,  whereas  he  saved  his,  showing  more  skill  in  the 
matter  than,  in  his  opinion,  geniuses  are  wont  to  have;  —  he 
was,  to  say  tlie  least,  very  cool.  During  his  entire  life  he  was 
as  careful  as  he  was  successful  in  guarding  against  sharing 
others'  losses  and  sufferings. 

Then  is  not  his  philosophy  of  life  one  great  lie  ? 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  say  so.  It  is  true,  Schopen- 
hauer did  not  live  the  life  which  he  praises  as  the  best ; 
but  he  deeply  and  sincerely  appreciated  the  value  of  such 
a  life. 

Schopenhauer  is  a  very  transparent  character ;  the  dualism 
of  human  nature,  in  which  reason  and  desire  form  the  two 
opposite  poles,  becomes  unusually,  nay,  alarmingly  discord- 
ant, in  him.  In  so  far  as  he  is  will,  he  lives  an  unhappy 
life.  From  his  father  he  inherited  a  melancholy  tempera- 
ment ;  he  invariably  sees  things  in  the  wrong  light ;  little 
things,  too,  annoy  him  very  much.  He  is  full  of  violent 
desires,  impetuous,  high-tempered,  ambitious,  sensuous,  and 
withal  very  diffident:  he  is  constantly  plagued  by  all  kinds 
of  vague  fears  of  trouble,  losses,  diseases,  which  his  sen- 
suous ego  might  suffer;  he  is  extremely  suspicious  of  all 
men  without  exception  —  in  truth,  a  series  of  qualities, 
any  one  of  which  would  have  been  sufficient  to  make  his  life 
unhappy. 

That  is  the  one  side  of  his  life.  And  now  look  at  the 
other ;  he  is  also  an  intellect,  nay  a  genius,  endowed  with  a 
remarkable  power  of  objective  intuition.     He  has  experienced 


'I 


hi 


212  ORIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

the  blessedness  of  the  life  of  pure  knowledge  as  purely  and 
deeply  as  any  thinker  before  him,  nay  perhaps  more  deeply 
than  any  other  one,  on  account  of  the  contrast  between  the 
intellectual  side  of  his  being  and  his  restless,  unhappy, 
volitional  life.  He  can  describe  the  tranquillity,  the  peace, 
and  the  joy  of  solitary  contemplation,  of  the  quiet  commu- 
nion with  thoughts,  in  the  most  affecting  manner. 

Durer  has  pictured  this  state  of  blessedness  in  a  wonder- 
ful painting :  Saint  Jerome  is  seated  in  a  quiet,  wainscoted 
chamber,  the  cheerful  sunlight  falling  through  the  round  panes 
upon  the  wall  of  the  deep  window-niche.    The  companions 
of  the  Saint,  the  lion  and  the  dog,  anger  and  desire,  are 
lying  side  by  side,  peacefully  sleeping  upon  the  floor ;  we 
hear  their  deep,  quiet  breathing.    A   gourd,  which  is  sus- 
pended  from  the   ceiling,  a  skull,   which  is  lying  on  the 
window-sill,  diffuse  about  them  the  stillness  which  proceeds 
from  things  perfectly  matured  and  removed  from  the  turmoil 
of  the  world.     A  happy  thought  has  just  seized  the  Saint,  and 
he  bends  forward,  in  order  to  set  it  down  in  writing ;  soon 
he  will  lean  back  again  and  lose  himself  in  contemplation. 
A  picture  producing  a  remarkable  effect  upon  the  thoughtful 
observer !  —  it  shows  the  wonderful  power  of  real  art  to  ex- 
press a  world  of  thoughts  and  feelings  in  a  single  perception.  ^ 
How  poor  by  the  side  of  it  seems  that  art  which  feeds  on 
imitation,  which,  when  it  has  the  task  of  portraying  solitude, 
silence,  and  philosophy,  hits  upon  the  plan  of  representing 
a  more  or  less  aged,  allegorical  female  figure ! 

Schopenhauer  might  have  sat  as  Durer's  model  for  this 
picture.  Freed  from  all  desires  and  cares,  pursuing  his  own 
thoughts,  he  enjoyed  happy  hours,  without  hurry  and  worry, 
without  fear  and  hatred.  But  then  came  other  times ;  the 
beasts  which  seemed  to  have  been  entirely  tamed  rose  up 
again,  destroyed  his  peace,  and  filled  his  life  with  trouble 
and  anxiety.  And  he  was  helpless  against  them ;  he  often 
Bays  so  himself:  it  is  a  curious  but  undoubted  fact  that  the 


MEDIEVAL   AND  MODERN   SYSTEMS 


213 


clearest  knowledge  of  the  perverseness  of  the  will  can  produce 
no  change  in  it. 

This  enables  us  to  understand  his  ethical  system :  it  is  the 
confession  of  his  failings  and  sins,  it  is  the  yearning  of  his 
better  self  for  deliverance  from  the  companion  to  whom  it 
finds  itself  yoked. 

All  this  is  neither  surprising  nor  unusual.  From  what 
should  a  man  seek  to  be  delivered  if  not  from  himself? 
Petrarch  writes  De  contemptu  mundi  and  praises  the  freedom 
and  simplicity  of  the  shepherd  and  peasant  life  in  the  remote 
valley:  he  lives  at  the  courts  of  the  spiritual  and  secular 
lords,  purchasing  participation  in  their  luxurious  pleas- 
ures with  flattery  ;  he  wanders  through  the  cities  of  France 
and  Italy  in  order  to  intoxicate  himself  with  the  fragrance 
of  his  fame.  He  praises  pure  love  and  unselfish  friendship :  he 
lives  with  beautiful  women,  and  his  friends  are  the  heralders 
of  his  fame,  or  assist  him  in  his  chase  for  benefices.  He 
inveighs  against  envy,  and  cannot  pronounce  the  name  of 
Dante,  because  he  hates  him  as  a  rival.  —  Is  he  a  liar  ?  Not 
at  all ;  he  thoroughly  appreciates  the  value  of  the  things 
which  he  praises,  he  really  feels  a  yearning  for  them,  but 
he  is  likewise  attracted  to  the  vanities  of  life.  G.  Voight, 
from  whose  masterly  characterization  I  have  taken  the 
above  elements,  presents  us  with  a  delicate  and  faithful 
picture  of  him  in  his  History  of  the  Revival  of  Classical 
Antiquity,  "  The  gaze  which  he  turned  inward  was  keen 
enough  to  penetrate  the  abyss  of  vanity  to  its  very  depth. 
Then  he  shuddered  at  his  own  soul,  and  yet  could  not  tear 
his  love  away  from  it.  He  desired  to  bring  it  into  harmony 
with  its  ideals,  and  began  the  fierce  struggle  with  himself; 
but  he  never  got  beyond  the  determined  mien  and  the  angry 
word;  he  could  not  turn  the  sharp  weapon  which  seeks 
the  heart  of  the  opponent  against  his  beloved  self.  He 
imagined  that  he  was  doing  penance  in  thinking  and  writing, 
but  all  his  thinking  and  writing  simply  intensified  his  self- 


Fill' 


!!«!| 


214  OBIGINS  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

love.    This  vain  soul,  which  he  desired  to  hate,  he  finally 
loved  all  the  more  on  account  of  its  remorse  and  its  painful 

struggles."  . 

So  Rousseau :  he  preached  against  the  corruption  of  morals, 
and  pointed  out  the  way  to  natural  education :  he  lived  w,th 
a  concubine  and  sent  his  children  to  a  foundling  asylum,  never 
to  hear  of  them  again.     Was  he  a  liar  ?    Certainly  not.    His 
passion  for  natural  and  pure  human  relations  was  perfectly 
sincere  ;  he  really  felt  the  degradation  of  unnatural  relations, 
in  which  he  had  waded  up  to  his  knees  ever  since  his  youth, 
more  keenly  than  any  one  of  his  contemporaries.    A  man 
that  has  never  been  sick  does  not  know  what  health  is.    The 
hunchback  is  the  most  sincere  admirer  of  a  straight  back 
the  bashful  man  of  frank  openness,  the  coward  of  martial 
courage.    Was  ever  a  man  more  in  love  with  bravery  than 
John  Falstaff?     Did  ever  a  man  prate  more   of  princely 
virtue  and  royal  duties  than  Carl  Eugen  of  Wlirtemberg? 
And  what  nation  speaks  more  of  civic  virtue  and  republican 
sentiments  than  the  French  ? 

I  once  heard  a  proverb  full  of  profound  meaning:  The  man 
who  rings  the  bell  cannot  march  in  the  procession. 

14    The  age  of  Speculative  Philosophy  was  followed  in 
Germany  by  an  age   of  absolute   contempt  for  philosophy. 
Historicism,  the  devotion  to  details,  dominated  science  for 
a  few    decades.      Metaphysics  and    ethics  were    forgotten. 
Of  late  the  interest  in  these  subjects  is  reviving.    It  is  being 
centred   on  ethics  from  two  sides.  The  modern  biological 
theory  propounds  the  question :  How  did  custom  and  moral- 
ity arise,  and  what  is  their  import  in  the  economy  of  the 
nations  and  the  individual  ?    On   the  other  hand,  the  new 
social   sciences   invite  us  to  take  up  the  ultimate  problems 
concerning  the  vocation  of  man  and  the  conditions  of  its 
realization.    Hence  it  happens  that  even  jurists  and  political 
economists,  physiologists  and  anthropologists,  are  beginning 
to  philosophize  again  in  our  days. 


MEDLEVAL  AND  MODERN  SYSTEMS 


215 


I  shall  content  myself  with  mentioning  a  number  of  titles 
of  the  rapidly  increasing  modern  literature.* 

^  E.  Duhring,  Der  Wert  des  LebenSfSth  ed.,  1894;  M.  Carri&re,  Diesitdiche 
Weltordnung,  1877,  2d  ed.,  1890 ;  J.  Baumaun,  Handbuch  der  Moral,  1879 ;  E.  von 
Hartmann,  Phdnomenologie  des  sittlichen  Bewusstseins,  1879,  2d  ed.,  1886  ;  W. 
Schnppe,  GrundzUge  der  Ethik  und  RecAtsphilosophie,  1881 ;  E.  Laas,  Idealismus 
und  Positivismus,  vol.  II.,  1882;  G.  von  Gizycki,  GrundzUge  der  Moral,  2d 
ed.,  1889;  H.  Steinthal,  Allgemeine  Ethik,  1885;  P.  Re'e,  Die  Entstehung  des 
Gewissens,  1885;  Th.  Ziller,  Allgemeine  philosophische  Ethik,  2d  ed.,  1886;  W. 
Wundt,  Ethik,  2d  ed.,  1891  (translated  into  English) ;  Chr.  Sigwart,  Vorjragen  der 
Ethik,  1886;  Fr.  Nietzsche,  Zur  Genealogie  der  Moral,  1887;  H.  Hijffding,  Ethik, 
1887  (German  translation,  1889) ;  F.  Tonnies,  Gemeinschafl  und  Gesellschaft, 
1887 ;  A.  Diiring,  Philosophische  Gitterlehre,  1888 ;  P.  Viktor  Cathrein,  Moral- 
philosophie,  2  vols.,  1890-91 ;  Th.  Ziegler,  Sittliches  Sein  und  sittliches  Werden,  2d 
ed.,  1890 ;  H.  Gallwitz,  Das  Problem  der  Ethik  in  der  Gegenwart,  1891 ;  G.  Runze, 
Ethik,  vol.  I.:  Praktische  Ethik,  1891;  G.  Simmel,  Einleitung  in  die  MoraU 
wissenschajl,  2  vols.,  1892;  A.  Doiaei,  Das  menschliche  3andeln,  Phibsophische 
Ethik,  1895.  Finally  I  also  mention  here  A.  von  Ottingen,  Moralstatistik,  4th 
ed.,  1887 ;  and  R.  von  Jhering,  Der  Zweck  im  Recht,  2d  ed.,  1884-86,  2  vols. 


T3 


BOOK  II 

FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTS  AND  QUESTIONS  OF 

PRINCIPLE 


If  any  man  is  able  to  convince  me  and  sJiow  me  that  I  do  not 
tJiink  or  act  right,  I  will  gladly  change;  for  I  seek  the  truth,  by 
which  no  man  was  ever  injured.  But  he  is  injured  who  abides  in 
his  error  and  ignorance.  —  Marcus  Aurelius. 


METAPHYSICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL 

INTRODUCTION 

I  BELIEVE  it  will  be  wise  to  preface  the  following  discussions 
with  a  summary  of  the  metaphysical  and  psychological  con- 
ceptions upon  which  they  are  based.  A  more  detailed  ac- 
count of  some  of  these  problems  will  be  found  in  my  Intro- 
duction  to  Philosophy,^ 

1.  Reality  manifests  itself  in  two  phases.  Seen  from  with- 
out, by  the  senses,  it  manifests  itself  as  a  corporeal  world ;  seen 
from  within,  in  self-consciousness,  as  psychical  life. 

2.  The  two  sides  are  co-extensive.  Every  psychical  process 
has  its  equivalent  in  the  physical  world,  and,  conversely,  every 
physical  process  has  a  psychical  equivalent. 

3.  Body  is  a  phenomenon  and  the  symbol  of  psychical  life, 
which  is  the  true  reality,  or  reality  in  itself. 

4.  Psychical  life  is  immediately  experienced  only  in  our 
own  inner  life,  of  which  our  body  is  the  phenomenon. 

5.  We  reason  by  analogy  from  the  form  and  movement 
of  bodies,  and  so  come  to  assume  the  existence  of  psychical 
life  in  things  outside  of  us.  But  we  reach  an  adequate  and 
penetrating  knowledge  of  the  inner  human  processes  only,  and 
therefore  regard  the  psychical  world  as  co-extensive  with  his- 
torical human  life. 

6.  The  unity  of  all  mental  life  we  call  God.  God's  essence 
transcends  our  knowledge.  We  conceive  God  by  means  of 
the  highest  human  psychical  life.  This  explains  the  anthro- 
pomorphic symbolism  of  all  religions. 

1  [Fourth  edition,  1896  ;  English  translation  by  Frank  Thilly.  —  Tr.] 


220 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


7.  Psychical  life  has  two  phases,  will  and  intelligence.  The 
will  manifests  itself  in  strivings  and  feelings,  the  intelligence 
in  sensation,  perception,  and  thinking. 

8.  Biological  and  evolutionistic  reflections  reveal  the  will 
as  the  primary  and  radical  element  of  psychical  life.  Life 
originally  consists  in  blind  striving,  without  presentation  of 
ends  and  means.  The  intelligence  manifests  itself  as  a  sec- 
ondary development,  as  a  growth,  like  its  physiological  phe- 
nomenon, the  nervous  system  and  brain. 

9.  Psychology  also  shows  the  will  to  be  the  primary  ele- 
ment. A  specific  will,  aiming  at  a  particular  form  of  life, 
manifests  itself  as  the  inner  essence  of  man  as  well  as  of 
every  living  being.  The  will-to-live,  the  will  to  live  a  specific 
life,  is  not  the  result  of  previous  knowledge  or  of  the  experi- 
ence which  we  gain  of  its  worth  through  feeling. 

10.  The  development  of  the  will  may  be  characterized  by 
three  stages:  impulse,  desire,  and  will  in  the  narrower 
sense.  The  goal  at  which  it  aims  in  each  of  the  three  stages 
is  the  preservation  and  promotion  of  individual  and  generic 

life. 

11.  The  original  form  of  the  will  is  blind  impulse  ;  in  con- 
sciousness it  appears  as  a  felt  striving.  In  case  the  craving 
is  satisfied,  the  successful  activity  is  accompanied  by  pleasur- 
able feelings ;  in  case  it  is  obstructed,  pain  ensues. 

12.  Sensuous  desire  is  impulse  accompanied  by  the  percep- 
tion of  the  object  or  idea  of  the  movement  at  which  it  aims. 
It  presupposes  a  certain  development  of  intelligence  and  a 
fusion  of  will  and  idea.  The  satisfaction  or  inhibition  of  the 
desire  is  likewise    accompanied   by   pleasurable  or  painful 

feelings. 

13.  Will,  in  the  narrower  sense,  or  rational  will,  is  desire 

determined  by  purposes,  principles,  and  ideals.  It  arises  in  man 
as  the  highest  development  of  the  will,  when  the  intelligence 
develops  into  rational,  self-conscious  thought.  The  will  be- 
comes  conscious  of  itself  in  the  practical  ideal  of  life.     Feel- 


INTRODUCTION 


221 


ings  of  satisfaction  accompany  conduct  which  conforms  to  the 
ideal,  while  acts  out  of  harmony  with  the  ideal  arouse  feelings 
of  dissatisfaction. 

14.  The  rational  will,  governed  by  an  ideal,  subjects  the 
lower  forms  of  will,  impulse,  and  desire,  which  persist  even 
in  man  as  natural  predispositions,  to  constant  criticism  and  to 
a  process  of  selection.  This  criticism  we  call  conscience. 
The  faculty  of  educating  and  disciplining  the  natural  will  by 
means  of  the  rational  will  is  called  freedom  of  the  will.  A 
being  who  thus  controls  his  inner  life  is  called  a  personal 
being. 

15.  The  relation  of  will  to  feeling  may  be  expressed  as 
follows :  Every  act  of  will  is  originally  also  an  emotion,  and 
conversely,  every  emotion  is  at  the  same  time  positive  or 
negative  willing.  In  feeling,  the  will  becomes  conscious  of 
itself,  of  its  aim,  and  of  its  condition.  Feeling  is  not  the 
cause  of  the  act  of  will,  the  will  is  already  present  in  feeling 
as  in  its  manifestation. 

16.  In  the  higher  stages  of  development,  the  relation  is 
somewhat  different.  Here  we  have  volitions  which  are  not  at 
the  same  time  feelings.  A  resolution  or  decision  to  do  some- 
thing may  take  place  without  being  accompanied  by  feeling ; 
indeed,  it  may  be  opposed  to  the  immediate  feeling.  Con- 
versely, we  have  feelings,  especially  aesthetic  feelings,  which 
are  no  longer  motives  of  the  will,  although  the  will  i»  still 
mirrored  in  them. 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


223 


CHAPTER  I 

GOOD  AND  BAD.     TELEOLOGICAL  AND  FORMALISTIC 

CONCEPTIONS  1 

1.  As  was  said  before  (p.  34),  two  problems  formed  the 
original  starting-point  of  ethical  reflection;  the  same  two 
problems  must  invariably  carry  the  thinking  man  back  to 
ethics  again.  The  first  springs  from  the  function  of  moral 
judgment :  What  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  moral  distinctions  ? 
The  second  has  its  origin  in  the  volitional  and  active  nature 
of  man :   What  is  the  ultimate  end  of  will  and  action  f 

The  first  question,  as  our  historical  review  has  shown,  gives 
rise  to  two  theories,  the  teleological  and  the  formalist  ic.  The 
former  explains  the  difference  between  good  and  bad  by  the 
effects  which  modes  of  conduct  and  acts  of  will  naturally 
produce  upon  the  life  of  the  agent  and  his  surroundings. 
Acts  are  called  good  when  they  tend  to  preserve  and  promote 
human  welfare ;  bad,  when  they  tend  to  disturb  and  destroy 
it.  Formalistic  ethics,  on  the  other  hand,  claims  that  the 
concepts  good  and  bad,  taken  in  their  moral  sense,  designate 
an  absolute  quality  of  the  will,  without  any  regard  to  the 
effects  of  acts  or  modes  of  conduct;  that  this  quality  can- 
not be  further  explained,  but  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact. 

1  [For  the  teleological  view:  Mill,  Utilitarianism,  chap.  II.;  Spencer,  Z)a fa 
of  Ethics,  chaps.  I.-III. ;  Sidgwick,  Methods  of  Ethics,  420  £f. ;  Stephen,  Science  of 
Ethics,  chaps.  IV.,  V. ;  Hoffding,  Ethik,  chap.  VII. ;  Ethische  Principienlehre, 
IV.;  also  Int.  Journal  of  Ethics,  1890  (October);  Jhering,  Der  Zweck  im  Recht, 
vol.  II.,  pp.  95  ff. ;  Wundt,  Ethik,  Part  III.,  chap.  II.-IV.  Against  the  teleologi- 
cal  view :  Abbott's  translation  of  Kant's  Ethics,  pp.  9  ff . ;  Lecky,  Htstorj/  of 
European  Morals,  chap.  I.;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies;  Martineau,  Types  of  Ethi^ 
cal  Theory,  vol.  II. ;  Gallwitz,  Das  Problem  der  Ethik  in  der  Gegenwart.  —  TR.] 


« That  will  is  good,"  says  Kant,  "  which  is  determined  by 
respect  for  duty ;  that  will  is  bad  which  is  determined  by 
the  opposite."  —  I  am  an  advocate  of  the  teleological  view. 

The  second  question :  What  is  the  end  of  all  willing  ?  has 
also  given  rise  to  different  answers,  which  may  be  reduced  to 
two  fundamental  forms:  the  hedonistic  and  the  energistic 
The  former  asserts  that  the  will  is  universally  and  invariably 
bent  upon  pleasure  (or  avoidance  of  pain),  and,  hence,  that 
pleasure  is  the  highest  or  absolute  good,  which  is  not  desired  for 
the  sake  of  anything  else.  The  energistic  view,  on  the  other 
hand,  holds :  The  will  does  not  aim  at  pleasure,  but  at  an 
objective  content  of  life,  or,  since  life  consists  solely  of  action, 
at  definite  concrete  activities, 

I  regard  the  latter  conception  as  the  correct  one.  My  view 
may,  therefore,  be  characterized  as  teleological  energism.  Our 
principle  would  then  be :  Such  modes  of  conduct  and  volitions 
are  good  as  tend  to  realize  the  highest  goal  of  the  will,  which 
may  be  called  welfare.  I  mean  by  it  the  perfection  of  our 
being  and  the  perfect  exercise  of  life. 

The  two  following  chapters  will  set  forth  the  reasons  which 
seem  to  me  to  support  this  view.  But  first  let  me  say  a  word 
concerning  the  terminology  which  I  have  chosen. 

It  is  customary  to  use  the  term  utilitarian  instead  of  teleo- 
logical. What  induced  me  totally  to  discard  the  former  ex- 
pression in  the  later  editions  of  my  book  has  been,  aside  from 
philological  objections,  the  impossibility  of  guarding  it  against 
misconception.  It  originated  in  Bentham's  school;  John 
Stuart  Mill  confesses,  in  his  Autobiography/,  that  he  coined 
the  term.  It  is,  in  its  origin,  inseparably  connected  with 
hedonism ;  hence  the  critics  who  have  had  time  for  nothing 
but  a  superficial  glance  at  the  terminology  employed  in  my 
ethics  have  insisted  on  confusing  it  with  Bentham's  system. 
In  order  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  this  error,  I  have  sub- 
stituted for  the  term  utilitarian  the  term  teleological.  The 
latter  has  the  additional  advantage  of  suggesting  the  general 


224 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


225 


theory  of  the  universe  from  which  this  form  of  ethics  takes  its 
rise,  the   Platonic-Aristotelian  pUlosophy.     Its   fundamental 
idea  is  that  every  being  and,  hence,  also  man,  has  a  purpose 
in  the  universe.    This  purpose,  and  the  forms  and  functions  of 
life  arising  therefrom,  it  is  the  business  of  ethics  to  ascertain. 
I  have  coined  the  term  energism,  in  order  to  bring  my 
view  into  sharp  contrast  with  hedonism :  the  end  of  the  will 
is  not  feeling,  but  action.      Its  resemblance  to  Aristotle's 
€V€>76ta  may  also  serve  to  remind  us  of  the  origin  of  the  con- 
cept.     The  word  welfare,  finally,  seems  suited  to  designate 
the  highest  good  in  its  twofold  aspect :  it  shows,  first,  that 
the  highest  good  is  an  objective  content  of  life,  consisting  in 
the  perfect  exercise  of  all  human  psychical  powers ;  then  it 
also  suggests  that  such  a  life  is  accompanied  with  pleasure, 
and  hence  that  pleasure  is  not  excluded  from  the  perfect  life, 

but  included  in  it. 

2.  I  shall  first  attempt  to  show  what  the  teleological  theory 
means,  and  give  reasons  for  it.     Popular  opinion  inclines 
more  to  the  f ormalistic  view :  Acts  are  not  morally  good  or 
bad  according  to  their  effects ;  they  are  good  or  bad  in  them- 
selves.   The  disposition  determines  the  moral  worth  of  the 
act,  not  the  effects.^    Even  if  the  compassion  of  the  good 
Samaritan  in  the  Gospel  had  not  saved  the  man  who  fell 
among  thieves,  nay,  even  if  it  had  caused  his  death,  that  is,  if 
the  thieves  had  attacked  and  killed  the  rescuer  and  had  then 
put  to  death  the  wounded  traveller  in  order  to  destroy  all  evi- 
dence of  their  crime  ^  this  would  not  in  the  least  affect  our 
judgment  of  the  moral  worth  of  the  act.     Or,  suppose  that  a 
slanderous  remark,  instead  of  finding  ready  acceptance,  as  is 
usually  the  case,  is  repudiated  and  simply  deprives  the  calum- 
niator  of  the  confidence  which  he  has  hitherto  undeservedly 
enjoyed.     And  suppose  that  the   episode  causes   a  greater 
interest  to  be  taken  in  the  injured  party  and  greater  con- 
fidence to  be  reposed  in  him.    Nevertheless,  however  desir- 

i  [See  Abbott's  Kant,  pp.  9  ff.;  Martineau,  vol.  II.,  pp.  53  f.  — Tr.] 


able  such  effects  may  be,  they  do  not  alter  the  baseness  of 
calumny. 

We  should  answer :  The  statement  is  true,  but  it  is  not  an 
objection  against  the  teleological  theory.     The  theory  does 
not,  of  course,  claim  that  the  value  of  the  particular  acts  is  to 
be  judged  by  their  actual  results,  but  that  acta  and  modes  of 
conduct  are  good  or  bad  in  so  far  as  they  naturally  tend  to 
produce  favorable  or  unfavorable  effects.     It  lies  in  the  very 
nature  of  slander  to  deprive  the  victim  of  his  good  name  and 
the  confidence  of  his  surroundings.     In  the  case  mentioned  it 
was  not  the  fault  of  the  calumniator  that  the  effect  did  not 
appear,  it  was  due  to  the  conscientiousness,  vigilance,  and 
knowledge  of  human  nature  of  the  person  who  saw  through 
the  trick.     The  slanderous  remark,  one  might  say,  adapting 
the  terminology  of  Aristotle,  was   causa  per  accidens,  not 
causa  per  se,  an  accidental  occasion,  but  not  the  cause  of  the 
favorable  results.      Morality,  however,   has  to   do  not  with 
the  actual  consequences,  but  with  the  effects  flowing  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  act.     Physics  has  to  do  with  the  law  of 
gravitation  and  not  with  the  infinitely  variable  actual  move- 
ments of  falling  bodies  ;  it  investigates  the  law  of  gravitation, 
ignoring  the  fact  that  the  tendency  to  gravitation  is  not  the 
sole  cause  of  the  actual  movement  of  a  body.     Similarly, 
medicine    seeks   to   determine   the    natural    tendency   of  a 
remedy  or  a  poison  to  act  upon  the  organism,  knowing  full 
well  that  a  thousand  other  causes  may  diminish,  modify,  or 
even  counteract  its  effects  in  a  particular  case.     In  the  same 
way,  ethics  seeks  to  determine  the  natural  tendencies  of  modes 
of  conduct  and  not  the  innumerable,  variable,  actual  results  of 
the  particular  acts.     It  asks:  What  would  be  the  effect  of 
calumny  upon  humanity  if  it  alone  determined  the  result  ?  and 
judges  its  worth  according  to  the  answer.     Similarly,  to  take 
tlie  other  example,  benevolence  naturally  tends  to  diminish 
human  misery,  and  is  therefore  good. 

Or  is  this  a  mistake  ?   Is  benevolence  good  in  itself,  regard- 

15 


226 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


less  of  its  effects,  and  malevolence  bad  in  the  same  sense  ? 
Would  not  the  Samaritan  have  been  what  he  was  if  he  had 
been  wholly  unable  to  render  aid,  if  he  had  been  compelled 
to  remain  at  home,  poor,  sick  and  in  need  of  help  himself  ? 
Certainly;  but  the  teleological  view,  rightly  understood,  does 
not  dispute  it.     Here,  again,  it  is  a  pure   accident  that  a 
virtue  does  not  realize  its  effects ;  its  tendency  remains  the 
same,  and  the  tendency  is  what  we  judge.     But  suppose  that 
it  were  impossible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  for  one  man  to 
help  another,  suppose  that  each  individual  inhabited  his  own 
planet  and  could  see  the  misery  of  the  inhabitant  of  a  neigh- 
boring planet  without  being  able  to  help  him  in  any  way  ? 
Then  would  compassion  be  good  ?   Should  we  not  say :    It  is 
not  good  for  him  to  feel  pity,  it  simply  doubles  the  sorrow ; 
it  would  be  much  better  if  he  lacked  the  power  to  see  the 
wretchedness  of  others  ?    Nevertheless,  he  would  be  a  good 
man,  you  say.     Very  true ;  but  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that  if 
he  were  near  and  could  render  aid,  his  being  there  would  be 
a  benefit.     We  have  here  an  instance  similar  to  what  we  find 
in  the  theoretical  field ;  we  ignore  a  relation  which  is  con- 
stantly and  necessarily  presupposed.     We  say.  The  stars  are 
bright  points,  and  believe  that  we  are  thereby  attributing  to 
them  an  absolute  quality.     Epistemological  reflections   first 
convince  us  that  such  a  judgment  presupposes  a  point  of  re- 
lation, namely,  an  eye  that  is  sensitive  to  light.     Here,  too, 
common-sense  would  say :   But  the  stars  would  surely  shine 
even  if  all  eyes  were  closed.     Certainly ;   but  that  simply 
means  that  if  an  eye  were  again  opened,  it  would  see  them. 
If  there  were  no  eyes  at  all,  there  would  be  no  shining  points. 
Similarly,  if  men  did  not  produce  effects  upon  men,  if  they 
were  metaphysically  isolated  from  each  other,  like  Leibnizian 
monads,  it  would  be  utterly  absurd  to  say  that  malevolence 
was  bad  and  benevolence  good.     The  words  malevolence  and 
benevolence  would  be  devoid  of  meaning. 

3.   But  another  objection  is  urged.     Your  theory  does  not 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


227 


meet  the  facts  after  all.  The  moral  judgment  is  not  con- 
cerned with  acts  and  modes  of  conduct,  but  with  the  disposi- 
tion  of  the  agent.  The  act  is  good  when  its  motive  is  good, 
that  is,  when  it  springs  from  the  sense  of  duty,  be  its  effect 
what  it  may.^ 

Nor  is  this  statement  untrue.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  moral 
judgment  of  a  particular  act  first  considers  the  disposition  of 
the  agent.  We  try  to  ascertain  the  moral  worth  of  the  per- 
son, which  manifests  itself  in  the  act,  and  therefore  inquire  into 
his  motives.  A  physician  performs  a  dangerous  operation,  and 
the  patient  dies  from  it.  The  public  now  pronounces  judg- 
ment. Did  the  physician  do  it  from  a  sordid  motive  ?  No, 
the  patient  was  unable  to  pay.  Was  it  ambition  that  prompted 
liim  ?  Hardly,  for  he  had  successfully  performed  the  opera- 
tion a  hundred  times,  and  this  was  a  desperate  case.  Well, 
then,  he  must  have  been  extremely  careless !  No,  it  took  him 
a  long  time  to  make  up  his  mind  to  do  it.  He  simply  felt 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  make  a  final  attempt  to  save  the 
patient's  life.  —  When  that  conclusion  has  been  reached,  it 
means  that  the  act  was  morally  unassailable. 

But  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  the  operation  was 
justified  by  the  facts.  This  is  a  point  that  must  be  settled 
by  the  physicians ;  and  if  they  find  that  the  outcome  of  the 
case  could  have  been  foreseen,  they  blame  the  physician  and 
say  :  He  should  not  have  done  it.  And,  hence,  it  is  not  the  dis- 
position, but  the  result  that  decides  after  all.  That  is,  not  the 
actual,  particular  result  —  no  one  can  be  held  accountable 
for  an  accident  —  but  the  result  which  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  nature  of  the  case. 

The  same  thing  meets  us  everywhere :  a  distinction  is 
made  between  a  personal  and  an  objective  judgment  aroused 
by  the  same  act.  .Evert/  act  gives  rise  to  two  judgments, 
a  subjective^  formal  judgment  of  the  disposition  of  the 
person  and  an  objective^  material  judgment  of  the  act  itself. 

*  [Kant,  ibid. ;  Martineau,  vol.  II ,  Part  II. ;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies. —  Tb.J 


228 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


229 


In  the  former  case,  we  inquire  into  the  motive,  in  the  latter, 
into  the  effects  following  from  the  nature  of  the  case.^ 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  clearly  understand 
this  difference,  and  also  that  we  see  that  these  two  judgments 
are  independent  of  each  other  and  may  even  contradict  each 
other.     An  act  may  be  objectively  wrong,  and  yet  the  agent 
may  be  personally  irreproachable.     It  is  said  of  St.  Crispin 
that  he  stole  leather  to  make  shoes  for  the  poor.     Does  that 
make  Crispin  a  thief  and  a  rascal  ?    We  shall  hardly  be  will- 
ing to  say  so.     He  would  surely  never  have  taken  the  mean- 
est thing  for  himself.     But  when  he  saw  poor  children  with 
sore  and  half  frozen  feet,  his  heart  was  grieved,  and  having 
nothing  himself  he  took  a  piece  of  leather  from  the  rich 
merchant  in  order  to  help  them.     Not  without  some  reluc- 
tance, we  may  imagine ;  for  he,  too,  had  learned  the  com- 
mandment,  "  Thou  shall  not  steal."     But  so  great  was  his 
pity  that  he  risked  the  danger  of  the  gallows.     Of  what  use, 
he  may  have  thought,  is  his  wealth  to  the  rich  usurer  ?     It 
will  merely  lead  to  his   damnation.      Perhaps,  God  in  his 
mercy  will  credit  him  with  the  act  of  charity  which  he  will 
thus  involuntarily  perform.     And  so  Crispin  went  and  took 
with  a  good  conscience  as  much  as  he  needed.     If  pity  and 
good  will  are  absolutely  good,  they  are  certainly  good  in  this 
case  also.     The  subjective  formal  judgment  must  be:  The 
will  of  Crispin,  who  served  others  with  a  clear  conscience 
and  by  sacrificing  his  own  interests,  was  a  good  will. 

But  this  judgment  is  not  the  only  one  to  which  the  act 
gives  rise.  The  act  itself  is  made  the  object  of  a  judgment 
which  is  formed  on  the  basis  of  the  effects  naturally  belong- 
ing to  it.  Objectively  considered,  the  act  is  undoubtedly 
theft :  depriving  a  man  of  his  property  without  the  consent  of 

1  [''An  act  is  materially  good  when  in  fact  it  tends  to  the  interest  of  the  sys- 
tem, so  far  as  we  can  judge  of   its  tendency,  or  to  the  good  of  some  part 
consistent  with  the  svstem,  whatever  were  the  affections  of  the  agent.         An 
action  is  formally  good  when  it  flowed  from  good  affection  in  a  just  proportion. 
(HutchesonJ  —  Tr.] 


the  owner.     Such  a  mode  of  conduct  has,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  —  whatever  may  be  the  motive  —  effects 
which  are  extremely  dangerous  to  human  welfare.     If  such 
conduct  became  general,  if  everybody  were  to  act  according 
to  the  maxim :  If  in  your  opinion  you  can  do  more  good  by 
taking  a  commodity  from  its  owner  and  giving  it  to  another, 
then  it  is  your  right  or  your  duty  to  make  the  transfer,  re- 
gardless of  the  owner's  wishes,  what  would  be  the  result  ? 
Evidently,  the  complete  abolition  of  the  institution  of  prop- 
erty,  and  with  it,  the  disappearance  of  the  desire  to  acquire 
more  than  momentary  needs  call  for,  and  the  destruction  of 
human  life.     Hence,  the  effects  which  follow  from  the  nature 
of  such  an  act  are  ruinous,  and  the  act  is  bad.     And  so  uni- 
versal is  this  belief  that  such  acts  are  prohibited  and  pun- 
ished as  stealing.     Had  Crispin  been  brought  before  a  judge, 
the  latter  would  have  been  compelled  to  condemn  him  with- 
out hesitation.     Not  only  because  the  law  required  it;  nay, 
even  if  he  had  made  the  law  himself,  he  could  not  have  acted 
otherwise.     He  would  not  have  been  willing  to  insert  a  clause 
into  the  code  in  favor  of  Crispin's  theft,  to  wit :  But  every 
encroachment  upon  the  property  of  another  shall  go  unpun- 
ished,   provided   a   third    party   thereby  receives   a   benefit 
exceeding  the  damage  done  to  the  owner.     No,  the  formula : 
Interference  with  the  property  rights  of  others  is  punishable, 
holds  unconditionally.     The  most  that  the  judge  could  have 
done  would  have  been  to  take  into  account  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances.   And  he  might,  perhaps,  have  told  the  accused 
privately  how  sorry  he  was  to  have  been  compelled  to  sen- 
tence him.     I  know  that  your  intentions  were  good,  he  might 
have  said,  but  I  should  like  to  show  you  that  your  mode  of 
procedure  was  not  the  proper  one,  so  that  you  may  not  con- 
sider yourself  unjustly  treated.     And  he  might  then  have 
proved   to   him  that  his  act,  innocent  though  it   may  have 
seemed,  was  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  general  welfare. 
The  historian  will   frequently  find   himself  placed   in  a 


230 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


I  'I 


similar  position.     He  will  condemn  an  act  without  therefore 
condemning  the  character  of  the  agent,  and  conversely.     So 
far  as  we  are  able  to  judge  from  his  letters  and  the  testimony 
of  his  friends,  K.  L.  Sand,  the  murderer  of  Kotzebue,  acted 
in   the  firm  belief  that  he  was  sacrificing  himself  for  his 
country.    He  believed  that  it  was  his   duty  to  destroy  the 
enemy  who  was  corrupting  the  soul  of  his  people.     And  if  it 
is  harder  to  die  on  the  scaffold  than  on  the  field  of  battle,  we 
cannot  underrate  Sand's  devotion  to  what  he  felt  to  be  his 
duty.     But  the  same  act  was,  objectively  considered,  highly 
reprehensible.     If  every  man   were  allowed  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  the  life  of  his  neighbor,  and  to  kill  him  in  case 
he  considered  him  a  menace  to  the  community,  all  law  and 
order  would  disappear,  and  the  war  of  all  against  all  would 
become  inevitable.    There  is  hardly  a  man,  at  least  not  in 
public  life,  whose  activity  is  not  regarded  by  some  one  in  the 
community  as  a  curse,  and  whose  death  some  one  would  not 
welcome  as  a  blessing  to  humanity.     Hence,  the  sentence  of 
death  pronounced  upon  the  murderer  of  Kotzebue  was  en- 
tirely just  and  necessary.    The  inquisitors  persecuted  her- 
etics and  brought  them  to  the  stake.    It  is  conceivable  and 
probable  that  some  of  them  at  least  did  what  they  did  with 
a  heavy  heart :  not  because  they  rejoiced  in  the  sufferings  of 
others  —  nay,  they  suffered  themselves  —  but  because  they  felt 
it  to  be  their  duty,  because  they  were  firmly  convinced  that  it 
would  be  better  for  a  heretic  to  die  than  that  a  whole  people 
should  be  tempted  and  corrupted  by  him.     Subjectively  con- 
sidered, their  conduct  was  without  blame,  no  less  so  than  that 
of  the  judge  who  sentenced  poor  Sand.     The  difference  is  a 
material  difference  only :   we  are  no  longer  convinced  that 
the  safety  of  a  people  demands  the  persecution  and  execution 
of  those  who  differ  from  us  in  matters  of  religion. 

The  inability  to  keep  these  two  views  apart  causes  much 
confusion.  Whoever  condemns  the  act  believes  that  he  must 
assume  an  evil  motive  in  order  to  justify  his  disapproval  of 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


231 


the  character,  that  he  must  attribute  love  of  power  and 
cruelty  to  the  inquisitors,  vanity  and  a  craving  for  notori- 
ety to  Sand.  Conversely,  whoever  approves  and  under* 
stands  the  character  of  the  agent  feels  bound  to  approve  of 
the  act,  and  gives  it  an  innocent  or  even  praiseworthy  name. 
The  moralizing  party-eloquence  of  the  historians  finds  au 
excellent  field  here.  Such  names  and  motives  are  selected 
for  acts  as  arouse  the  love  and  admiration  or  the  hatred  and 
indignation  of  the  reader.  As  a  rule,  writers  of  this  class 
do  not  care  so  much  for  the  truth  as  to  make  things  appear 
good  or  bad  in  the  eyes  of  the  reader. 

We  now  come  back  to  our  question.  It  is  clear  that  the 
objective,  material  judgment  is  justified  teleologically :  the 
value  of  acts  and  modes  of  conduct  depends  upon  their 
ability  to  solve  the  problems  of  life,  or  upon  their  effects  upon 
the  conduct  of  life.  But  the  same  may  ultimately  be  said 
of  the  subjective,  formal  judgment.  First,  however,  let  me 
say  that  it  is  the  real  business  of  ethics  to  determine  the 
objective  value  of  modes  of  action  and  conduct,  not  to  decide 
upon  the  subjective,  personal  value  of  the  disposition  of  the 
agent.  It  is  manifestly  not  the  function  of  the  science  to  deter- 
mine the  motive  and  disposition  in  a  particular  case  ;  and  it 
is  not  its  function,  or  at  least  only  to  a  very  small  degree,  to 
establish  the  principles  underlying  this  judgment.  The  prin- 
ciple of  the  subjective,  formal  judgment  is :  An  act  is  good 
in  so  far  as  it  springs  from  a  will  determined  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  duty.  In  saying  this  we  say  everything  that 
can  be  said  upon  the  subject.  It  is  morally  right  to  act 
conscientiously,  it  is  morally  wrong  to  act  contrary  to  one's 
conscience,  be  the  content  of  conscience  whatever  it  may. 
But  there  never  was  an  ethics  that  stopped  here ;  it  has  in- 
variably attempted  to  find  an  answer  for  the  other  question 
also  :  What  is  it  that  duty  really  enjoins  ?  For  no  ethics  can, 
without  ignoring  the  most  patent  facts,  get  around  the  fact 
that  conscience  commands  and  permits  different  persons  to 


232 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLED) 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


233 


tt> 


act  differently  in  the  same  case ;  nay,  that  its  dictates  are 
not  infrequently  different  for  the  same  person  at  different 
times.     Now,  it  is  surely  not  the  object  of  ethics  merely  to 
command  the  individual  to  obey  his  conscience,  but  above  all 
to  guide  his  conscience,  that  is,  to  teach  him  to  decide  what 
is  the  content  of  a  normal  conscience.     And  if  scientific  ethics 
cannot  follow  the  example  of  theological  ethics  and  appeal 
to   the   commands   of   a   transcendent   law-giver,  or   to   the 
absolute  decisions  of  an  infallible  court,  and  if  it  cannot,  with- 
out renouncing  its  scientific  character,  do  what  Herbart  and 
Lotze  show  an  inclination  to  do,  that  is,  appeal  to  the  categor- 
ical formula  —  My,  the  moralist's,  conscience,  the  normal  con- 
science, decrees  as  follows  —  then  it  has  no  other  course  than 
to  measure   the  content  of  the  conscience  or  of  the  duties 
which  it  enjoins  by  an  objective  standard ;  and  this  objective 
standard,  again,  can  only  be  the  value  which  modes  of  action 
and  conduct  derive  from   their  relation  to  an  ultimate  and 
highest  good. 

Finally,  however,  the  subjective,  formal  conception  itself 
is  reduced  to  the  teleological  view.  To  act  from  respect  for 
duty,  from  conscientiousness,  is  morally  good.  Why  is  con- 
scientiousness good  ?  Or  is  this  an  absurd  question  ?  I  do 
not  believe  it.  Conscientiousness  is  objectively  good,  the 
moral  philosopher  will  find,  because  conscience  tends  to 
determine  the  conduct  of  the  individual  to  the  end  that  he 
may  promote  the  welfare  of  the  agent  and  his  surroundings. 
Inclinations  are  variable  and  untrustworthy  ;  conscience  is,  on 
the  whole,  the  same  in  all  the  individuals  of  a  people,  and  there- 
fore makes  their  conduct  uniform  in  so  far  as  it  has  power  over 
them.  Even  this  formal  point  is  a  gain.  Moreover,  the  con- 
tents of  the  individual  conscience  represent  positive  morality, 
the  objective  morality  of  the  people,  which  is  inculcated  in  the 
individual  during  his  entire  life,  by  example,  by  praise  and 
blame.  But  the  general  moral  code,  in  turn,  contains  the  cus- 
toms {Sitten)  and  laws  of  a  people  or  an  entire  sphere  of  civili- 


zation. Customs,  however,  so  anthropology  tells  us,  are  to  be 
regarded  as  a  kind  of  social  instinct,  by  which  all  the  individ- 
uals of  a  particular,  historical  society  are  impelled  to  perform 
acts  tending  to  the  preservation  of  individual  and  social  life. 
Hence,  conscience,  thus  interpreted,  would  have  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  principle  which  impels  the  individual  to  promote 
his  own  most  vital  interests  and  the  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity of  which  he  is  a  member.  Let  this  suffice,  for  the  pres- 
ent, upon  this  point.  I  shall  return  to  it  in  the  fifth  chapter 
of  the  second  book.^ 

The  principle  of  teleological  energism  then  would  be : 
The  objective  value  of  human  conduct  is  ultimately  de- 
termined by  its  relation  to  a  final  and  highest  end  or  good, 
which  consists  in  the  perfect  development  of  being  and  the 
exercise  of  vital  functions ;  and  the  worth  of  a  good  will,  of 
a  will  actuated  by  a  feeling  of  duty,  ultimately  depends  upon 
its  power  to  influence  action  for  the  highest  good. 

4.  Before  entering  upon  a  more  detailed  definition  of  the 
highest  good,  I  should  like  to  answer  a  few  objections  which 
might  be  urged  against  my  view. 

In  the  first  place.  Is  not  this  principle  identical  with  the 
oft-quoted  maxim  which,  in  spite  of  their  protestations,  we 
are  in  the  habit  of  attributing  to  the  Jesuits:  The  end  justi- 
fies the  means  f  If  the  value  of  a  mode  of  conduct  depends 
upon  its  effects,  must  we  not  also  grant  it  of  a  particular 
act? 

Indeed,  I  do  not  see  how  teleological  ethics  can  deny  the 
proposition.  But  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  wish  to  deny 
it.  When  rightly  understood,  the  proposition  is  harmless  and 
necessary.  When  misconstrued,  of  course,  it  becomes  absurd 
and  damnable.  If  we  mean  by  it :  So  long  as  the  end  is  per- 
missible or  good,  any  means  may  be  employed  to  realize  it,  — 
then,  indeed,  there  is  not  a  crime  which  might  not  be  justi- 
fied by  it.     It  is  lawful  and  good  to  acquire  money  for  one's 

1  [See  Stephen,  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  IV.,  §  4.  —  Tk.] 


234 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


self  and  one's  family.  Now,  if  the  proposition  be  interpreted 
in  the  sense  just  indicated,  then  it  would  be  right  not  only 
to  work  for  wages,  but  even  to  hire  out  as  an  assassin,  pro- 
vided it  were  done  for  the  sake  of  the  good  end.  It  is  good 
to  help  your  neighbor  in  need  ;  if  the  proposition  were  entirely 
true,  it  would  be  right  to  perjure  one's  self  in  order  to  acquit 
a  good  friend  in  court.  This  is  evidently  the  interpretation 
which  the  opponents  of  the  Jesuits  accuse  them  of  having  put 
upon  the  maxim.  The  idea  is  :  The  Jesuits  act  according  to 
the  principle  that  any  means,  as  for  example,  the  murder  of 
heretical  kings,  breach  of  faith,  perjury,  where  heretics  are 
concerned,  etc.,  which  furthers  any  end  which  the  Jesuits 
themselves  consider  good,  say  the  increase  of  papal  power 
and  the  advancement  of  their  own  order,  or  the  annihilation 
of  Protestantism,  is  right.  It  is  easy  to  understand  why  the 
Jesuits  are  unwilling  to  acknowledge  the  proposition  either 
as  the  actual  maxim  of  their  acts,  or  as  the  principle  of  their 

morality. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  interpret  the  proposition  to  mean : 
Not  any  lawful  end  you  please,  but  only  the  end  justifies  the 
means;  and  there   is   only  one   end   which  determines   all 
values,  namely,  the  highest  good,  the  welfare  or  perfection  of 
humanity,  then  it  is  not  only  harmless,  but  inevitable.    An 
act  that  realizes  this  purpose  is  not  only  permissible,  but 
good  and  necessary.     Everybody,  with  perhaps  the  exception 
of  a  few  philosophers  who  have  a  principle  to  defend,  will 
acknowledge  this.      There  can  be  no  controversy  on  the 
point  whether  it  is  right  to  do  what  is  proved  to  be  neces- 
sary to  realize  this  end ;  the  only  question  is,  whether  an 
act  that  violates  a  universal  law  may,  under  certain  condi- 
tions, produce  such  an  effect.    If  that  were  proved,  every- 
body would  admit  the  objective  goodness  of  such  an  act.     If 
an  intentional  falsehood  had  and  could  have  only  beneficial 
effects,  it  would  not  be  a  reprehensible  lie.     If  by  depriving 
a  man  of  his  property,  we  should  and  could  injure  no  one, 


GOOD  AND   BAD 


235 


neither  the  owner  nor  the  community,  by  the  bad  example, 
nor  the  thief,  by  creating  a  habit  in  him  —  if  the  act  resulted 
in  the  greatest  good,  it  would  not  be  theft.  When  a  physi- 
cian removes  a  patient's  eye  in  order  to  save  the  other  eye, 
or  cuts  off  his  leg  to  save  his  life,  his  act  is  not  criminal  as- 
sault and  battery,  but  a  means  justified  by  the  end.  Should 
the  same  physician  yield  to  the  fervent  entreaties  of  an 
absolutely  hopeless  patient  afflicted  with  an  incurable  and 
highly  contagious  disease  contracted  in  a  foreign  land,  and 
give  him  a  fatal  poison,  and  then  bring  the  matter  to  the 
attention  of  the  authorities,  it  would  not  be  murder.  The 
physician  would,  of  course,  be  culpable  before  the  law,  and 
it  is  obvious  why  the  law  which  punishes  such  offenses  could 
not  be  suspended.  But,  morally  considered,  the  case  is  the 
same  as  when  an  officer,  after  the  necessary  formalities, 
shoots  down  the  ring-leader  of  a  riot.  How  else  could  we 
justify  the  latter  act  if  not  by  the  end  which  it  subserves,  that 
is,  the  maintenance  of  public  order  ?  If  the  killing  of  a  man 
were  in  itself  bad,  a  command  of  the  state  could  not  make  it 
good,  for  a  command  cannot  make  black  white,  or  change  the 
nature  of  things. 

Then  shall  we  say  that  falsehood,  deceit,  and  murder  are 
justifiable,  or  even  meritorious,  provided  they  have  nothing 
but  beneficial  effects  upon  the  welfare  of  humanity  ?  There 
are  two  reasons  why  it  is  impossible  to  affirm  this  question 
without  further  comment.  In  the  first  place,  on  account  of 
the  contradictions  involved  in  the  meaning  of  the  terms. 
The  words,  murder  and  falsehood,  signify  not  merely  an 
objective  fact,  intentional  killing  or  deception,  but  likewise 
imply  condemnation.  The  judgment,  Murder  is  wrong,  is 
an  "  analytical "  judgment ;  it  means  an  act  of  homicide 
that  is  legally  and  morally  wrong.  Hence,  in  order  to 
obtain  a  pure  judgment,  we  must  eliminate  the  condemna- 
tion expressed  in  the  term,  and  pronounce  judgment  upon 
the  objective  fact  alone,  that  is,  upon  the  intentional  act  of 


236 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


homicide.  Now  homicide  can  unquestionably  be  a  lawful 
and  even  dutiful  act ;  indeed  it  is  enjoined  by  statute,  the 
execution  of  which  is  enforced.  —  Very  true,  we  hear  the 
objector  say;  nevertheless, the  individual  as  such  is  prohibited 
from  killing  any  one  except  in  self-defense ;  the  killing  of  a 
foreigner  or  a  native  for  the  sake  of  the  welfare  of  the  people 
would  be  punished  as  murder.  And  yet,  even  such  killing 
would  be  justifiable  according  to  the  principle,  provided  we 
were  thoroughly  convinced  that  it  is  essential  to  the  welfare 

of  humanity. 

Our  answer  is :  The  mere  conviction  is  by  no  means  suffi- 
cient to  justify  the  act ;  nothing  but  the  actual  impossibility  of 
a  different  effect  can  do  that.  This  brings  us  to  the  second 
reason  why  we  cannot  accept  the  above  proposition.  We 
may  say,  the  proposition  :  The  welfare  of  humanity  is  an 
end  which  justifies,  without  exception,  every  act  that  is  a 
means  to  that  end,  is  in  theory  wholly  unobjectionable,  but 
cannot  be  applied  in  practice  We  can  never  figure  out 
whether  an  act  of  this  kind,  for  example  the  killing  of  a 
corruptor  of  the  people,  a  revolutionist,  or  a  tyrant,  by  a 
private  person,  will  have  only  favorable  or  approximately 
favorable  effects  upon  the  welfare  of  humanity,  or  even 
upon  the  permanent  welfare  of  a  particular  people.  When 
Napoleon  I.  trampled  upon  the  nations  of  Europe  many  a 
brave  man  must  have  felt  a  desire  to  kill  him  and  so  to 
free  his  oppressed  people.  Let  us  suppose  that  such  a 
person  had  succeeded  in  assassinating  the  Emperor  at 
Erfurt,  in  1808,  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  life.  Would  he 
have  rendered  humanity,  the  oppressed  and  down-trodden, 
a  service  ?  Many  of  his  contemporaries  would  probably  have 
believed  it.  We  of  the  present  day,  however,  should  feel 
inclined  to  say :  It  is  well  that  such  a  thing  did  not  happen. 
It  is  well  that  the  nations  of  Europe  were  compelled  to  win 
their  freedom  in  open,  honorable  battle.  Had  Napoleon 
fallen  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  the  bad  example  might  have 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


237 


corrupted  the  moral  judgment  of  men  for  centuries,  it  might 
have  had  a  pernicious  influence  upon  the  relations  existing 
between  the  different  nations,  the  German  people  would  not 
have  experienced  that  inner  regeneration  which  gave  back 
to  them  their  national  consciousness  and  made  possible  their 
political  existence  in  the  new  Empire.  True,  we  cannot 
absolutely  prove  it.  —  Some  one  may  reply :  If  the  tyrant 
had  been  killed  in  time,  much  bloodshed  would  have  been 
avoided,  there  would  have  been  no  Holy  Alliance  of  notori- 
ous fame,  and  the  feeling  of  national  pride  which  has  taken 
such  hold  upon  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  is  now  terrorizing 
them  with  tlie  fears  of  war  and  weighing  them  down  with 
armaments,  would  not  have  gained  such  an  unfortunate  as- 
cendency over  the  feeling  of  universal  brotherly  love,  and  so 
on.  This  view  too,  may  be  true,  and  we  cannot  prove  by  any 
form  of  reasoning  that  it  is  false.  Nay,  we  cannot  even  prove 
that  the  battle  of  Sedan  was  a  blessing  for  the  German  people. 
All  that  we  can  do  is  to  believe  these  things,  and  faith  rests 
upon  the  will.  It  is  just  as  impossible  to  make  an  absolute 
calculation  of  the  effects  of  a  movement  in  physics,  because 
every  effect  continues  ad  infinitum^  as  it  is  to  determine 
the  objective  value  of  a  particular  act  from  its  relation  to 
the  highest  human  end,  in  moral  philosophy.  Here,  as  in  the 
former  case,  we  are  dealing  with  infinite  quantities.  We  can 
merely  estimate  the  general  tendencies  of  motion  in  physics, 
and  the  tendencies  of  modes  of  action  to  further  or  retard 
welfare  in  morals. 

Still,  we  must  confess  that  circumstances  may  arise  under 
which  the  end  justifies  exceptions  to  the  rule,  just  as  poisons 
may  sometimes  be  used  as  remedies.  It  is  the  same  in  morals 
as  in  politics.  No  statesman,  no  historian,  will  refuse  to 
grant  that  a  breach  of  positive  law  may,  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, become  a  necessity.  But  no  one  will  dare  to  claim, 
unless  he  is  a  partisan  and  not  a  theorist,  that  he  can  strictly 
prove  the  necessity  of  a  particular  revolution.     Such  things 


238 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


can  be  believed,  but  not  proved.  No  one  can  ever  estimate  all 
the  consequences  of  a  violation  of  law,  especially  not  the 
more  remote  ones.  A  revolution  as  such  invariably  tends  to 
destroy  the  legal  order,  and  to  weaken  the  authority  of  law. 
To  what  extent  this  actually  occurs  no  one  can  tell.  The 
feeling  of  insecurity  produced  by  the  example  of  such  a  vio- 
lation of  law  may  continue  for  centuries  after  its  occur- 
rence. We  can  no  more  calculate  the  unfavorable  effects 
than  we  can  calculate  the  favorable  ones ;  we  can  never  prove 
that  the  sum  of  the  latter  exceeds  that  of  the  former.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  infractions  of  the  moral  laws.  There 
may  be  cases  in  which  these  become  necessary,  but  we  can 
never  prove  it  in  a  particular  instance.  It  will  never  be  pos- 
sible to  prove  that  the  sum  of  all  the  evil  effects  which  a 
breach  of  law  may  directly  and  indirectly  produce  in 
one's  own  life  and  that  of  others,  is  overbalanced  by  the  im- 
mediate good  effects  which  are  aimed  at.  Consequently, 
whoever  breaks  the  law,  always  does  so  at  his  own  peril. 
The  man  who  remains  within  the  bounds  of  the  law  can 
make  no  mistake.  Of  course,  energetic  natures  do  not  care 
chiefly  for  their  own  safety.  The  men  who  have  brought 
about  great  crises  in  history  have,  as  a  rule,  in  some  way 
or  other,  departed  from  the  safe  course  of  universal  morality 
and  law. 

The  most  serious  thing  about  our  proposition  is  its  tendency 
to  make  us  forget  the  more  remote  consequences,  and  empha- 
size the  immediate  ones.  The  end  justifies  the  means,  says 
the  partisan  to  himself,  when  he  attempts  to  secure  the  victory 
for  his  party  at  an  election  by  slandering  the  opposing  can- 
didate. The  end  justifies  the  means,  says  the  politician  who 
strives  to  gain  an  advantage  for  his  country  by  fraud  or  by 
force.  The  end  justifies  the  means,  says  the  churchman  who 
calumniates  and  disgraces  an  honest  man  because  he  docs 
not  accept  the  "sound  doctrine."  The  maxim  in  its  evil 
meaning  finds  the  freest   scope  in  partisan  activity.     Party 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


239 


morality  is  always  and  everywhere  inclined  to  identify  the 
advantage  of  the  party  with  the  welfare  of  the  people  or 
humanity.  The  cause  of  the  party  is,  of  course,  the  good 
cause,  hence  whatever  conduces  to  it  is  lawful  I 

Did   the   Society   of  Jesus   innocently   employ  this   mode 
of  reasoning  ?     It   is  commonly   assumed  that  it  did,  and 
indeed  the  proposition,  extra  ecclesiam  nulla  salus,  suggests 
the  conclusion :  Whatever  tends  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
church,  to  shatter  the  power  of  its  enemies,  or  to  advance  the 
power  of  its  friends  —  among  whom  we  are  the  most  faithful 
and  the  most  zealous  —  is  good,  whether  it  be  brought  about 
by  the  suppression  of  truth  or  the  circulation  of  falsehood,  by 
the  assassination  or  the  public  burning  of  human  beings.     We 
may  presume  that  the  history  of  the  order  shows  acts  which 
were  performed  according  to  this  principle,  and  that  some  of 
its  members  thought  and  acted  in  accordance  with  it.     It  is 
but  fair  to  say,  however,  that  such  persons  exist  in  every 
party.     Indeed,  we  may  say  that  every  party,  be  it  merely  a 
literary  sect  or  a  school  of  philology,  in  a  certain  sense  ac- 
cepts the  motto :  There  can  be  no  salvation  except  in  us. 
But,  we  must  also  add,  the  order  surely  contained  members 
whose  consciences  did  not  permit  them  to  draw  such  a  con- 
clusion.    Most  likely  the  Society  of  Jesus,  like  other  societies, 
was  neither  made  up  of  saints  only,  nor  yet  of  scoundrels  or 
"  men  in  wickedness  "  (Manner  an  Bosheit),  as  a  Protestant 
historian  calls  them,  but  of  human  beings.     And,  a  defender 
of  the  order  might  add,  there  is  a  very  obvious  reason  why 
such   a  maxim  should  have  come  to   be  regarded  as  their 
special  property.     The  stronger  a  party,   the  more   trouble- 
some it  is  to  its  opponents ;  and  the  greater  and  more  sur- 
prising its  victories,  the  more  surely  will  they  be  attributed 
by  its  opponents  to  the  employment  of  dishonest  means.^ 

1  I  call  the  reader's  attention  to  a  book  written  by  a  Jesuit,  Father  B.  Duhr, 
Jesuit  Fables  (Jesuitenfabeln),  2d  edition  1892,  which  gives  a  long  list  of  ex- 
amples,  extending  to  the  present,  to  show  that  the  enemies  of  the  order 
have  themselves  acted  in  accordance  with  the  principle  that  the  end  justifies  the 


240 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


5.   Another  objection  to  the  teleological  moral  philosophy  is 
the  following.     It  is  contended  that  the  teleological  view  can- 
not explain  the  absolute  importance  attached  to  particular  acts 
by  genuine  ethical  feeling.     If  the  violation  of  the  moral  laws 
is  to  be  avoided  solely  on  account  of  the  effects,  why  should  an 
offence  whose  effects  are  manifestly  utterly  insignificant,  pro- 
duce such  violent  emotional  reactions  in  the  agent  and  the 
spectators.     Pestalozzi  tells  us  an  interesting  story  in  his 
Lienhard   and    Gertrude.     The  oldest   son   of  the   mason's 
starving  family  takes  a  few  potatoes  from  the  field  of  a  rich 
neighbor,  bakes   them  in  ashes,  and  shares  them  with   his 
brothers  and  sisters.     His  old  grandmother,  who  is  on  her 
death-bed,  becomes  alarmed  and  excited  at  the  discovery  of 
the  theft ;  she  cannot  die  in  peace  until  the  boy  confesses  his 
sin  to  the  neighbor  and  obtains  his  forgiveness.     Now,  if  the 
teleological  theory  is  correct,  how  shall  we  explain  the  dis- 
proportion between  the   intensity   of  the   emotion   and   the 
insignificance  of  the  harm  done  ?    The  neighbor  will  not  miss 
the  few  potatoes,  and  it  is  somewhat  fantastic  to  fear  that  a 
boy   might,  by  taking  them,  undermine  the  institution  of 
property.     Hence,  the   objector   might   continue,   making  a 
practical  application,  if  the  theory  were  to  become  universal, 
it  would  result  in  shaking  the  authority  of  the  moral  laws, 
or  lessen  the  fear  of  violating  them. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  offer  a  psychological  explanation  of 
the  emotional  reactions  following  the  infraction  of  the  moral 
law  until  I  reach  the  chapter  on  Duty}  All  I  can  say  here 
is  that  they  do  not  result  from  a  computation  of  the  damage 
done  or  feared,  and  that  it  is  hardlv  to  be  supposed  that  this 
will  ever  be  the  case.     I  shall  simply  endeavor  to  justify  the 

means.  The  annihilation  of  the  Jesuits  is  a  consummation  devoutly  to  he 
wished,  hence  everything  that  is  ralcnlated  to  lower  them  in  the  eyes  of  men  is 
a  priori  believahle ;  at  all  events  it  is  unnecessary  to  make  any  investij^ation, 
and  one  is  doing  the  world  a  service  hy  circnlating  the  slanders  about  them. 
[For  some  of  the  literature  on  the  subject  see  Runze's  Ethik,  p.  208.  —  Tr.] 
1  Chapter  V. 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


241 


intensity  and  absoluteness  of  the  feelings  of  aversion  and  re- 
morse, which  are  aroused  by  intended  or  accomplished  offences, 
from  the  standpoint  of  teleological  ethics. 

It  is  said  that  a  Greek  sage,  when  asked  by  a  friend  why  he 
had  punished  his  son  so  severely  for  some  trivial  offense,  re- 
plied :  And  do  you  regard  habit  as  trivial  ?  His  words  con- 
tain the  answer  to  the  objection  urged  against  our  theory.  If 
the  particular  act  were  an  isolated  act,  it  might,  indeed,  be  of 
little  moment.  The  important  thing,  however,  is  that  it  tends 
to  form  a  habit,  from  which  similar  acts  afterwards  result. 
I  once  read  a  striking  remark  made  by  a  Frenchman  :  Conse- 
quences would  not  be  so  important  if  they  did  not  in  turn 
become  causes.  It  is  true,  the  trivial  act  of  the  boy  in  our  ex- 
ample may  not  have  injured  the  neighbor,  indeed,  it  may  not 
have  harmed  any  one,  no  one  might  ever  have  heard  of  it. 
But  one  person  it  would  certainly  have  injured,  the  boy  him- 
self, had  not  the  damage  been  averted  by  penitence  and 
punishment.  He  would  have  remembered  how  he  once  suc- 
ceeded in  overcoming  want,  and  if  he  had  ever  found  himself 
in  trouble  again  with  the  same  opportunities  of  getting  out 
of  it,  he  would  have  recalled  his  past  experience  and  acted  in 
the  same  way.  Having  stolen  once,  he  would  have  become  an 
habitual  thief,  and  then  a  professonal  thief.  Perhaps,  it  would 
not  have  come  to  this.  Nevertheless,  the  first,  apparently  harm- 
less, transgression  was  the  first  step  in  that  direction.  No  one 
ever  stole  anything  for  the  first  time  with  the  intention 
of  becoming  a  thief  ;  certainly  not,  he  simply  wanted  this  one 
thing,  this  so  desirable,  so  absolutely  necessary  thing ;  but  the 
result  was  inevitable.  —  No  one  ever  told  his  first  lie  intending 
to  become  a  liar  ;  no  drunkard  ever  began  as  a  drunkard,  —  he 
began  with  a  single  spree,  and  with  the  firm  resolve  to  guard 
against  its  recurrence  in  the  future.  And  every  subsequent 
state  of  drunkenness  began  with  the  first  glass  and  the  firm 
resolve  that  it  should  be  the  last.  But  the  second  glass  and 
the  second  spree  and  the  second  lie  and  the  second  theft  came 

16 


242  CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 

of  their  own  accord,  finding  the  door  wide  open  to  admit  them. 
Innocence  is  a  negative  term,  but  a  positive  thing.  The  first 
trangression  breaks  down  the  barrier  which  separates  the  good 
path°from  the  evil  one.  Nowhere  is  this  more  apparent  than 
in  the  sphere  of  sexual  life,  as  the  term  innocence  (  Unschuld) 
in  the  narrower  sense  implies.  With  the  first  false  step  we 
enter  upon  the  downward  path  which  leads  to  an  abyss.  You 
will  be  careful  and  not  fall  down  ?  That  is  what  the  thou- 
sands believed  who  were  dashed  to  pieces  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pit.  "  The  first  is  free  to  us ;  we  're  governed  by  the 
second,"  ^  is  the  law  of  the  evil  spirits.  And  of  the  good 
ones  too.  After  the  first  temptation  has  been  overcome, 
the  danger  of  the  second  is  only  half  as  great.  The  first 
victory  which  we  win  over  ourselves  is  the  hardest,  every 
ensuing  struggle  becomes  easier,  until  at  last  we  do  the  right 

without  eft'ort. 

This  is  the  first  reason  why  each  particular  act  has  such 
great  moral  influence.  In  performing  it,  we  are  not  merely 
deciding  the  case  at  hand,  but  somehow  determining  our  whole 
course  of  life.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the  first  decision, 
although  it  is  of  especial  importance,  but  of  every  subsequent 
one.  Each  decision  leaves  a  deeper  imprint  upon  our  nature, 
until  it  becomes  absolutely  impossible  to  counteract  it.^ 

But  there  is  another  reason.  Not  only  does  every  act  tend 
to  create  a  habit  in  the  agent,  but  it  likewise  tends  to  produce 
a  similar  habit  in  the  surrounding  individuals,  and  thereby  to 
make  the  habit  of  the  individual  a  characteristic  of  the  race. 
This  is  brought  about  in  two  ways:  by  imitation  and  retaliation. 

Everybody  knows  how  great  is  the  force  of  example.  Cer- 
tain  plants  produce  germs  which  are  carried  through  the  air 
until  they  fall  upon  fertile  soil  and  grow.  Similarly,  we  may 
say,  good  and  evil  deeds  produce  germs  which  permeate  the 
moral  atmosphere  until,  passing  through  the  eyes  and  ears  of 
men  into  human  souls,  they  fall  upon  rich  ground  and  thrive. 

1  Faust.  ^  [See  James's  chapter  on  Habit.] 


GOOD   AND   BAD 


243 


This  mode  of  dissemination  is  peculiar  to  acts  which  do 
not  immediately  affect  the  agent  himself,  but  others.  An 
attempt  is  made  "  to  get  even,"  first,  with  the  person  who  has 
done  the  good  or  evil  deed,  and  then  with  any  one  who  may 
happen  to  come  along.  Darwin  tells  us  of  an  Australian 
whose  wife  died,  and  who  could  find  no  rest  until  he  had 
killed  a  woman  of  another  tribe,  in  retaliation  for  her  death,  so 
to  say.  This  seems  to  be  a  very  unnatural  method  of  pro- 
cedure, and  yet  it  is  practised,  to  some  extent,  by  all  Imman 
beings.  When  a  man  has  been  injured  or  treated  unkindly, 
and  cannot  revenge  himself  upon  the  responsible  party, 
either  because  the  latter  cannot  be  reached  or  is  not  known  to 
him,  he  usually  visits  his  anger  upon  the  first  individual  who 
happens  to  cross  his  path.  We  all  know  this,  and  get  out  of 
such  a  person's  way.  Some  one  or  other  has  palmed  off  a 
counterfeit  half-dollar  on  a  man.  You  may  wager  ten  to  one 
that,  however  honest  he  may  be,  he  will  attempt  to  pass  it  on. 
The  "  public  "  has  swindled  him,  it  is  a  lawful  act  of  self- 
defence  to  return  to  the  public  its  counterfeit  coin.  But  acts 
of  politeness  and  kindness  are  no  less  contagious.  A  stranger 
does  me  a  favor ;  I  have  forgotten  my  pocketbook  and  he  pays 
my  car-fare  ;  I  feel  impelled  not  only  to  thank  him,  but  also  to 
be  kind  to  other  strangers. 

Nowhere  are  good  and  evil  more  easily  transmitted  than  in 
the  family  ;  nowhere  is  the  power  of  example  more  effective, 
and  retribution  more  sure  to  follow.  What  we  receive  from 
our  parents  we  pay  back  to  our  children.  Good  training  and 
bad  training  are  both  hereditary. 

Hence,  an  examination  of  the  moral  judgments  pro- 
nounced upon  human  acts  and  qualities  universally  leads 
to  the  conception  of  universal  welfare  as  the  principle  which 
governs  all  determinations  of  value. 

6.  Let  me  supplement  these  reflections  by  briefly  showing 
that  the  other  path  which  moral  philosophy  can  pursue  and 
has  pursued  leads  to  the  same  goal.    The  question :   What  is 


244 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


i 


1 1. 
I 


•t* 


I 


the  ultimate  end  of  willing?  likewise  suggests  the  answer: 
The  welfare  of  the  individual  and  of  his  surroundings. 

There  is  a  view  which  claims  in  opposition  to  this  that  the 
will  naturally  aims,  not  at  universal  but  at  egoistic  or  indi- 
vidual welfare.  Everybody  strives  for  what  is  agreeable  or 
useful  to  him,  regardless  of  whether  it  hinders  or  furthers 
the  welfare  of  others.  This  idea  formulated  into  a  theory 
is  egoistic  or  individualistic  utilitarianism.  Hobbes  is  the 
first  modern  representative  of  the  view  that  the  will  of  every 
animal  is  directed  towards  self-preservation ;  that  self-preser- 
vation is  the  law  of  its  nature ;  that  whatever  benefits  it  is 
good,  and  whatever  is  good  for  others  is  good  for  it  only  in 
so  far  as  it  is  a  means  to  its  own  preservation. 

I  do  not  believe  that  we  can  maintain  this  theory  without 
flying  in  the  face  of  the  facts.     The  egoistic,  self-preservative 
impulse  undoubtedly  plays  an  extremely  important  part  in  life ; 
and  only  too  frequently  does  it  assert  itself  at  the  expense 
of  others'  interests.     But  no  one  is  an  egoist  in  the  sense 
of  caring  exclusively  for  his  own  weal  and  woe,  and  of  being 
utterly  regardless  of  the  welfare  of  others.    There  are  at  least 
a  few  persons  in  his  immediate  surroundings  whose  good  is  as 
dear  to  him  as  his  own,  whose  welfare  he  is  ready  to  pro- 
mote, at  least  if  it  can  be  done  without  endangering  his  own 
interests.     Indeed,  most  persons  will,  in  a  measure  at  least, 
even  be  ready  to  sacrifice  their  own  interests  for  the  sake  of 
a  small  group ;  they  will  be  willing  to  give  up  some  of  their 
comforts  in  order  to  help  it.     Some   men,   finally,  are   so 
deeply  interested  in  the  weal  and  woe  of  others,  not  only  of 
those  closely  related  to  them,  but  even  of  utter  strangers,  as 
to  be  governed  by  sympathy  in  their   entire  conduct.     We 
also  notice  that  individuals  are  directly  interested  in  the  wel- 
fare of  society  as  a  whole.     Whenever  an  individual  betrays 
his   country  for   gain,  the  indignation   aroused  shows  how 
violently  the  instincts  of  the  masses  resent  it.     Hence,  we 
may  say  in  general :   The  will  universally  aims  at  individual 


GOOD   AND  BAD 


245 


and  general  welfare,  in  quite  different  combinations,  it  is  true, 
but  yet  so  that  neither  element  is  ever  entirely  lacking.     We 
call  those  persons  unselfish  who,  in  an  unusual  degree,  sub- 
ordinate their  own  interests  to  those  of  others  ;  we  call  those 
egoistic  whose  regard  for  the  interests  of  others  falls  consider- 
ably below  the  average.    The  union  in  one  will  of  selfish  and 
social  impulses,  of  idiopathic  and  sympathetic  feelings,  is  an 
expression  of  the  biological  truth  that  the  individual  is  not 
an  independent  individual  being,  but  a  member  of  a  collective 
whole.    This  objective  relation  appears  subjectively  in  the 
constitution  of  the  will  and  the  feelings.     Even  in  the  animal 
world  the  impulse  of  self-preservation  is  invariably  accom- 
panied by  the  generic  impulse,  the  impulse  to  produce  and 
preserve  offspring  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  individual  life. 
In  human  life,  the  generic  impulse,  if  we  may  so  designate 
all  will-impulses  that  are  rooted  in  the  relation  of  the  individ- 
ual to  the  species,  is  expanded  and  intensified.    The  individual 
is  conscious  of  forming  a  part  of  the  whole  ;  he  regards  him- 
self as  belonging  to  a  family,  a  community,  a  people;  he 
adopts  their  purposes  into  his  own  will ;  his  interests  are  so 
closely  interwoven  with  the  general  interests  as  to  be  insepar- 
able from  them  in  his  consciousness.     We  may  therefore 
designate,  as  the  goal  of  his  willing,  the    universal  welfare 
inclusive  of  individual  welfare,  or  individual  welfare  within 
universal   welfare.     There   are,   it   is   true,   certain   persons 
whose  social  impulses  are  so  poorly  developed  as  to  be  almost 
entirely  absent,  persons  who  are  indifferent  to  the  weal  and 
woe  of  their  surroundings,  nay,  who  delight  in  the  injury  of 
others'  interests.     But  this  is  no  more  an  objection  to  the 
view  than  the  existence  of  idiots  is  a  contradiction  to  the 
truth  of  the   proposition  that    man  possesses    reason  and 
speech.     Physicians  and    anthropologists  agree   that   an  in- 
dividual incapable  of  sympathetic  feelings  is  as  much  of  a 
monstrosity  as  an  idiot. 
So  much,  for  the  present,  in  reply  to  the  theory  of  individ- 


246 


CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 


i 


ualistic  egoism.  After  the  concept  of  welfare  has  been  more 
clearly  defined,  I  shall  come  back  to  the  antithesis  between 
egoism  and  altruism.  Here  I  should  simply  like  to  state  that 
I^'cannot  ascribe  the  importance  to  the  matter  which  many 
moral  philosophers  ascribe  to  it.  Schopenhauer  and  his  fol- 
lowers regard  it  as  the  cardinal  question  in  morals.  The 
natural  man  is  absolutely  egoistic  and  therefore  without 
moral  worth;  only  such  acts  are  moral  as  have  for  their 
sole  motive  the  weal  and  woe  of  others.  But  since  such  moti- 
vation is  really  impossible  in  nature  — for  how  can  the  will 
be  influenced  by  what  does  not  concern  it  ?  —  all  morality  is 

really  supernatural. 

1  do  not  believe  that  the  world  in  which  we  live  is  so  mys- 
teriously arranged.     There  is  a  place  for  the  will  even  within 
the  natural  order.     Only  so  pessimistic  a  judge  of  empirical 
human  nature  as  Schopenhauer  can   regard  compassion   as 
supernatural.     Schopenhauer  somewhere  says  in  one  of  those 
climaxes  by  which  he  loves  to  dazzle  credulous  readers :  "The 
natural  man  would,  if  forced  to  choose  between  his  own  de- 
struction and  that  of  the  world,  annihilate  the  whole  universe 
merely  for  the  sake  of  preserving  himself,  this  drop  in  the 
ocean,  a  little  while  longer."-!  do  not  know  whether  any  one 
would  make  such  a  choice  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.     But  T 
do  know  that  there  is  not  a  man  living  who  would  not  regret 
his  choice  immediately  after  the  destruction  of  the  world,  and 
who  would  not  wish  to  be  freed  from  a  useless  and  unbearable 
existence.     Even  the  greatest  egoist  would  then  see  that  he 
was  not  intended  by  nature  for  complete  isolation.     He  would 
need  other  beings  if  only  to  be  admired,  feared,  or  envied  by 
them.     But  the  individual  hardly  exists  whose  relations  to 
humanity  are  completely  exhausted  by  these  feelings,  who  has 
not  some  one  whose  weal  and  woe  is  not  altogether  immaterial 
to  him  or  merely  fills  him  with  antipathy.     And  we  may  say 
that  the  welfare  of  the  overwhelming  majority  is  so  closely 
interwoven  with  the  welfare  of   others,   of  their  relatives, 


GOOD  AND  BAD 


247 


friends,  and  people,  that  they  cannot  fare  well,  either  objec- 
tively or  subjectively,  without  these.  Such  absolute  egoists 
exist  only  in  theory  and  not  in  reality ;  they  are  mere  speci- 
mens, so  to  speak,  prepared  by  moral  philosophers  to  prove  a 
theory,  and  a  false  theory  at  that. 

In  a  certain  sense,  of  course,  egoism  is  inevitable.  Even 
the  most  unselfish  man  desires  the  welfare  of  others  because 
their  welfare  is  not  immaterial  to  him.  The  furtherance  of 
the  weal  of  others  or  the  alleviation  of  others'  woe  is  a  source 
of  satisfaction  and  relief  to  him.  Indeed,  if  it  were  not  so, 
if  the  welfare  of  others  did  not  concern  him,  it  could  not 
become  an  object  of  his  willing.  My  will  can  be  moved  only 
by  mt/  feelings ;  I  cannot  have  and  feel  the  feelings  of  others. 
In  this  sense  the  ego  remains  the  centre  of  things.  It  will 
not,  however,  be  necessary  to  show  that  this  is  not  what  we 
mean  when  we  speak  of  selfishness  or  egoism  in  the  usual 
acceptation  of  the  term.  These  words  mean  the  inability  to 
feel  the  misfortunes  of  others,  or  to  rejoice  at  their  welfare. 
Only  an  abstract  moral  philosopher,  one  who  regards  the  con- 
tradiction of  the  natural  will  as  the  essential  characteristic  of 
duty,  or  the  exclusion  of  all  satisfaction  as  the  condition  of 
moral  worth,  will  be  troubled  by  the  fact  that  the  promotion 
of  others'  welfare  is  invariably  accompanied  by  a  feeling  of 
selfish  satisfaction.  These  are  fruitless  quibbles  indulged  in  by 
an  intellect  that  no  longer  deals  with  the  things  themselves, 
but  merely  endeavors  to  uphold  a  system. 

Let  me  add  another  statement.  It  has  been  said  that  tlie 
teleological  moral  philosophy  cannot  explain  self-sacrifice, 
that  a  man  like  Regulus  in  the  Roman  legend  contradicts 
the  theory. 

I  can  see  no  difficulty  here,  provided  we  do  not  regard 
absolute  egoism  as  a  part  of  the  theory.  Regulus,  who 
returns  to  his  Carthaginian  captivity  after  having  warned  his 
friends  against  concluding  a  peace  which  would  have  given 
him  his  freedom,  may  be  explained  as  easily  by  the  teleological 


248 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


as  by  the  formalistic  theory  of  ethics.  He  was  undoubtedly 
actuated  by  a  grand  purpose,  a  purpose  that  bore  him  up  and 
gave  him  strength ;  he  desired  to  give  to  his  people  a  glorious 
and  never-to-be-forgotten  example  of  heroic  sacrifice  of  private 
interests  for  the  public  weal,  and  at  the  same  time  to  show 
the  enemy  the  proud  dignity  and  grandeur  of  his  country  in 
his  own  person :  Behold,  such  sons  arc  begotten  by  Kome, 
who  know  how  to  die  for  the  glory  of  the  city,  not  only  on 
the  field  of  battle,  but  under  the  hands  of  the  torturers !  The 
consciousness  of  such  a  purpose,  the  conviction  that  such 
glorious  effects  will  follow,  produces  heroes.  I  do  not  regard 
it  as  proved  that  the  dry  consciousness  of  duty :  One  must 
not  break  one's  word,  can  do  the  same. 

Besides,  it  might  be  added,  every  real  sacrifice  is  at  the 
same  time  self-preservation,  namely,  preservation  of  the  ideal 
self.  What  did  Regulus  want,  what  was  the  real  aim  of  his 
willing  ?  His  life  ?  Why,  of  course,  but  that  does  not  mean 
the  preservation  of  this  particular  physiological  mechanism,  but 
action  in  peace  and  in  war,  in  the  service  of  his  country.  To 
increase  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  Roman  people:  that 
was  all  that  life  meant  to  him,  that  alone  would  satisfy  his 
will-to-live.  And  how  could  his  purpose  have  been  better 
realized  than  in  the  way  marked  out  by  fate  —  than  by  glori- 
fying his  people  and  himself  in  bravely  and  proudly  choosing 

to  die. 

7.  Let  me  sum  up.  The  conduct  of  a  man  is  morally  good 
when  it  tends  to  further  the  welfare  or  the  perfection  of  the 
agent  and  his  surroundings,  and  is  accompanied  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  duty.  It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  morally  repre- 
hensible when  It  lacks  both  of  these  characteristics  of  goodness, 
or  at  least  one  of  them.  In  case  the  objective  quality  is 
absent,  it  is  called  wicked  {schlecht),  and  in  case  the  agent  is 
conscious  that  it  is  contrary  to  duty,  it  is  called  bad  (bose), 
especially  if  it  tends  to  injure  the  welfare  of  others. 

We  call  a  man   good  when   he  fashions  his  own  life  in 


GOOD   AND  BAD 


249 


accordance  with  the  ideal  of  human  perfection,  and  at  the 
same  time  furthers  the  welfare  of  his  surroundings.  We  call 
him  bad  when  he  has  neither  the  will  nor  the  strength  to  do 
anything  for  himself  or  for  others,  but,  instead,  disturbs  and 
injures  his  surroundings. 

Virtues  and  vices,  then,  are  to  be  explained  as  the  different 
aspects  of  the  good  and  bad  man.  Corresponding  to  the 
different  problems  of  life  we  have  a  number  of  different  capa- 
cities or  virtues,  which  represent  so  many  forces  of  the  will 
tending  to  solve  them.  Opposed  to  them  are  the  vices  which 
express  so  many  incapable  wills. 

The  concept  good,  therefore,  always  presupposes  a  relation ; 
it  means  good  for  something.  According  to  common  usage, 
a  thing  is  good  when  it  is  capable  of  doing  its  work  properly, 
of  realizing  its  purpose.  Similarly,  when  applied  to  man, 
the  term  signifies  the  ability  to  accomplish  something.  A 
good  manager,  a  good  soldier,  a  good  citizen,  a  good  friend,  a 
good  father,  is  one  who  efficiently  performs  the  functions  of  a 
father,  citizen,  friend,  soldier,  or  manager.  The  word  good 
means  the  same  in  morals :  a  good  man  is  a  man  who  effi- 
ciently solves  the  problems  of  individual  and  social  human 

life. 

The  term  loses  its  relative  character  only  when  applied  to 
the  whole  ;  the  perfect  life  of  society,  perfect  reality  in  gen- 
eral, is  not  good  for  something  else,  but  good  in  and  for  itself. 
But  every  individual  thing  is  good  for  something ;  every  par- 
ticular act  or  virtue,  every  particular  human  being,  is  good 
for  something ;  they  have  a  purpose  or  object  in  the  whole, 
and  are  therefore  good  in  so  far  as  they  realize  it.  ^ 

But  we  must  add :  In  so  far  as,  in  the  moral  world,  the 
individual  thing  is  not  an  indifferent  means  of  realizing  an 
external  end,  in  so  far  as  the  individual  man  is  himself  a 
member  of  the  moral  whole,  he  forms  a  part  of  the  highest 
good,  and  is,  as  such,  an  end  in  himself,  like  the  highest 

1  [See  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics,  chap.  III.  — Tb.] 


250 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


:i 


good.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  virtues :  In  so  far  as 
they  represent  aspects  of  the  good  man,  they  are  not  merely 
external  means  to  an  external  end,  but  themselves  a  part  of 
the  perfect  life  and  highest  good.  Similarly,  moral  acts,  the 
expressions  of  virtues,  are  at  the  same  time  realizations  of 
the  purpose,  and  not  merely  external  means. 

As  in  a  work  of  art  or  fiction  everything  is  both  a  means 
and  an  end,  so  it  is  in  the  moral  world.  In  neither  case  are 
the  means  external :  they  are  always  also  parts  of  the  end. 
In  both  cases,  however,  the  whole  is  the  absolute  end,  and  the 
worth  of  the  parts  depends  upon  their  usefulness  for  the 
whole.  We  show  the  necessity  of  a  verse  or  scene  in  a  drama 
by  proving  that  it  is  indispensable  to  the  whole.  So,  too,  we 
prove  the  necessity  of  a  virtue  or  a  duty  by  showing  that  it  is 
indispensable  to  life,  to  the  perfect  life  of  the  individual  and 
society. 

It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  the  individual  need  not 
be  conscious  of  this  relation  in  order  that  his  conduct  have 
moral  worth.  The  good  old  mother  mentioned  above,  who 
despised  theft  simply  because  it  is  against  the  eighth  com- 
mandment, is  as  moral  in  her  willing  as  the  philosopher  who 
understands  the  teleological  necessity  of  the  institution  of 
property  for  human  life.  For,  after  all,  it  is  not  his  insight 
that  keeps  him  from  stealing,  but  his  inherited  and  acquired, 
instinctive  aversion  to  theft. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   HIGHEST  GOOD.     HEDONISTIC  AND  ENERGISTIC 

CONCEPTIONS  1 

1.  In  the  preceding  chapter  we  were  led  to  the  notion  of 
welfare.  By  that  term  we  meant  the  highest  goal  of  the  will 
and  the  ultimate  principle  underlying  our  moral  judgments. 
It  is  also  called  the  highest  good.  In  what  does  welfare  or  the 
higliest  good  consist  ? 

We  have  already  declared  that  the  highest  good  of  an  indiv- 
idual as  well  as  of  a  society  consists  in  the  perfect  development 
and  exercise  of  life.  This,  of  course,  is  a  purely  formal  defin- 
ition, but  we  cannot  make  it  more  specific.  It  is  as  impossible 
to  define  the  perfect  life  as  it  is  to  define  a  plant  or  animal 
species.  We  can  simply  give  a  description  of  it :  this  it  is  the 
business  of  the  doctrine  of  virtues  and  duties  to  do. 

Before  giving  a  more  detailed  account  of  this  conception, 
however,  1  deem  it  wise  to  discuss  another  view  of  the  nature 
of  the  highest  good.  An  influential  ethical  school  contends 
that  welfare  or  the  highest  good  does  not  consist  in  the  objective 

1  [For  criticism  of  hedonism,  see  :  Plato's  Philebus  and  Bk.  IX.  of  the  Republic  / 
Aristotle,  Ethics ;  Kant ;  Lecky,  chap.  I. ;  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  chap.  IV. ; 
Sidgwick,  Methods  of  Ethics,  Pleasure  and  Desire ;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies, 
Essays  III.  and  VII. ;  Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Bk.  II.,  chap.  II.,  Bk.  III., 
chaps.  Land  IV.,  Bk.  IV.,  chaps.  III.  and  IV.;  Martineau,  vol.  II.;  Murray, 
Handbook  of  Ethics,  Bk.  II.,  Part  I.,  chap.  I. ;  Simmel,  Einleitung  in  die  Moral- 
wissenschajl,  vol.  I.  chap.  IV. ;  Hyslop,  Elements  of  Ethics,  349-385 ;  also  the 
ethical  works  of  Calderwood,  Bowne,  Muirhead,  Mackenzie,  J.  Seth.  For  hedon- 
ism, see  Democritus ;  Cvrenaics ;  Epicurus ;  Locke,  Essay,  Bk.  II.,  chap.  XX., 
§§  1  ff .,  chap.  XXL,  §§  '42  ff. ;  Bk.  L,  chap.  III.,  §  3 ;  Bk.  II.,  chap.  XXVIIL, 
§§  5  ff. ;  Ilutcheson  ;  Paley  ;  Hume  ;  Beutham  ;  James  Mill ;  J.  S.  Mill ;  Sidg- 
wick ;  Barratt ;  Bain  ;  Hodgson  ;  l^owler ;  Gizycki ;  all  of  whom  are  mentioned 
in  the  Iiistorical  part  of  this  work.  See  also  Santayana,  The  Sense  of  Beauty, 
1896.  — Tr.] 


252 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


i 


content  of  life^  but  in  the  feeling  of  pleasure  which  life  pro- 
cures ;  that  pleasure  is  the  thing  of  absolute  worth,  and  that 
everything  else  has  value  only  in  so  far  as  it  conduces  to 
pleasure.  This  view  is  commonly  called  hedonism  ;  the  theory 
opposed  to  it  we  have  called  energism. 

The  antagonism  between  these  two  schools  is  of  long  stand- 
ing; it  runs  through  the  entire  Greek  philosophy.  On  the 
one  side  are  the  Cyrenaics  and  Epicureans;  on  the  other, 
the  followers  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  and  the  Stoics.  The 
same  antithesis  appears  in  modern  philosophy.  On  the  one 
side  we  have  the  empirical  psychologists ;  on  the  other,  the 
older  rationalistic  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  and  the  German  philosophers  who  follow  Kant. 
According  to  the  former,  the  subjective  feeling  of  pleasure, 
regardless  of  how  it  is  produced,  is  the  absolute  good ;  accord- 
ing to  the  latter,  it  is  the  objective  development  of  individ- 
ual and  social  human  life,  regardless  of  whether  it  yields 
pleasure  or  not.  Of  course,  they  add,  such  a  life  is  actually 
experienced  with  inner  satisfaction. 

I  do  not  regard  it  as  superfluous  to  preface  my  examination 
of  hedonism  with  the  statement  that  the  question  at  stake  here 
is :  Is  the  hedonistic  view  true  or  false  ?  and  not.  Is  it  good 
or  bad  ?  The  attempt  to  prove  the  falseness  of  this  theory  by 
calling  it  immoral  is  old.  In  an  old  maxim  of  the  Stoic 
school  both  hedonism  and  atheism  are  repudiated  in  this 
way.^ 

That  is  not  a  legitimate  argument.  Theories  are  bad  only 
in  so  far  as  they  are  false.  The  orator  will  hardly  be  willing 
to  abandon  the  method  of  proving  their  falsehood  by  their 
immorality,  but  philosophy  cannot  afford  to  employ  it.  Let 
me  add  that  pure  and  moral  men  have  never  been  wanting 
among  the  representatives  of  this  view.  Epicurus  lived  a 
blameless  life,  while  Bentham  and  Mill  battled  zealously  and 

1  'HSov^j    T€Xoy,   ie6pin\s   96yfia'   oi/K   tffri  icpovoia,   ow8i   wdpmis    h6yiia.      A 
Gellius,  IX.,  5. 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


253 


energetically  for  the  realization  of  practical  ideas,  and  have  a 
better  claim  to  the  title  of  idealists,  if  that  is  a  title  of  honor, 
than  many  of  those  who  arrogate  it  to  themselves. 

How  can  the  assertion  that  pleasure  is  the  thing  of  absolute 
worth  be  proved  ?  It  seems  to  me,  only  by  showing  that 
human  beings  actually  prize  it  as  such.  Here,  at  least,  the 
function  of  the  moralist  is  not  that  of  a  lawgiver,  but  that  of 
an  interpreter  of  nature.  It  would  be  absurd  to  say  :  True ; 
human  nature  does  not  esteem  pleasure  of  absolute  worth,  but 
it  ought  to  do  so.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  all  hedonists 
assert  that  all  men,  nay,  that  all  living  beings,  invariably 
and  universally  strive  after  pleasure ;  and  that  pleasure  (or 
freedom  from  pain)  is  the  only  thing  which  is  desired  abso- 
lutely ;  that  all  other  things  are  desired  not  for  their  own  sake, 
but  as  a  means  to  the  end  of  pleasure  or  freedom  from  pain. 

I  do  not  believe  that  this  view  is  substantiated  by  the  facts. 
Let  me  first  attempt  to  point  out  that  the  will  does  not 
aim  directly  at  pleasure,  but  at  a  particular  content  of  life, 
which   in   man   is   a  human  and   at  best   a  spiritual-moral 

content.^ 

What  is  the  evidence  of  self -consciousness  on  this  point  ? 
Does  it  reveal  pleasure  as  an  end  and  everything  else  as  a 
means  ?  Let  us  first  make  clear  to  ourselves  what  we  mean 
by  ends  and  means.  I  am  cold  and  desire  to  get  warm.  I 
can  accomplish  my  end  in  different  ways.  I  can  take  exer- 
cise, I  can  put  on  warmer  clothes,  or  I  can  light  a  fire.  For 
the  latter  I  can  use  wood  or  turf  or  coal.  Here  we  have  a 
pure  relation  of  means  to  end :  the  end  is  warmth,  and  I 
desire  it  for  its  own  sake.  The  means  I  desire  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  end ;  in  themselves  they  are  totally  indifferent ;  I 

1  [For  the  psychology  of  willing  see  the  standard  works  on  psychology; 
especially,  Hiiffdiug,  pp.  308-356  ;  James,  ch.  XXVI.,  esp.  pp.  549-551  ;  Ladd, 
Descriptive  Psychology,  chaps.  XI.,  XXV.,  XXXVI.  ;  Baldwin,  vol.  II.  Bain 
is  the  chief  advocate  of  psychological  hedonism:  Emotions  and  the  Will,  pp. 
304-504 ;  Mental  and  Moral  Science,  Bk.  IV.,  chap.  IV.  See  also  Jodl,  Lehrbuch 
der  Psychologic,  chap.  XII. —  Tr.] 


254 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


n 


choose  that  one  among  them  which  will  help  me  to  realize 
my  purpose  in  the  quickest  manner  possible  and  at  the  least 
expense.  Now,  does  the  same  relation  obtain  between  all 
human  activities  and  pleasure  ?  We  sit  down  at  a  table 
hungry.  Is  pleasure  our  end,  and  is  eating  related  to  it  as 
an  absolutely  indifferent  means,  like  the  coal  in  our  example  ? 
The  lover  of  music  goes  to  a  concert.  Is  pleasure  his  end, 
and  music  the  means?  Did  Goethe  —  applying  Bentham's 
formula  that  "the  constantly  proper  end  of  action  on  the 
part  of  every  individual  at  the  moment  of  action  is  his  real 
greatest  happiness  from  that  moment  to  the  end  of  his  life  " 
—  select  as  the  means  to  his  greatest  happiness  poetry  and 
prose,  amours  with  girls  and  women,  business  affairs  and 
travels,  scientific  and  historical  investigations  ?  —  Well,  that  is 
manifestly  absurd,  and  no  one  will  make  such  a  claim.  No, 
impulses  and  powers  slumbered  in  him  which  craved  for  exer- 
cise and  development,  just  like  the  forces  dwelling  in  the  seed  of 
a  plant.  And  when  these  powers  were  exercised  and  unfolded, 
pleasure  ensued,  but  this  pleasure  did  not  pre-exist  in  con- 
sciousness as  an  end  of  which  the  other  things  were  the  means. 
The  impulse  and  the  craving  for  activity  preceded  all  conscious- 
ness of  pleasure.  The  consciousness  of  pleasure  did  not  exist 
before  the  impulse,  and  produce  or  arouse  it.  Only  the  blas^ 
and  worn-out  idler  first  experiences  a  desire  for  pleasure, 
and  then  looks  about  him  for  some  means  of  procuring  it. 
Healthy  men  do  not  act  that  way. 

Or  must  we  ignore  this  apparent  absurdity  and  boldly  say 
that  all  desires  actually  aim  not  at  the  thing  or  action,  but  at 
pleasure  ?  James  Mill,  a  bold  and  acute  thinker,  claims  that 
we  must.  In  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  his  Analysis  of  the 
Phenomena  of  Human  Mind,  he  teaches  that  desire  is  solely 
another  name  for  the  idea  of  pleasure.  There  is  an  am- 
biguity, however,  he  points  out,  caused  by  a  process  of  asso- 
ciation ;  the  term  desire  is  also  applied  to  the  ideas  of  the 
causes  of  our  pleasures  and  pains.     We  have  a  desire  for 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


255 


water  to  drink ;  that  is,  strictly  considered,  a  figure  of 
speech.  Properly  speaking,  it  is  not  the  water  we  desire, 
but  the  pleasure  of  drinking.  The  illusion  that  we  desire 
to  drink  is  merely  the  result  of  a  very  close  association. 

This  reminds  me  of  an  anecdote  which  appeared  in  the 
Fliegende  Blatter,  An  Englishman  is  seated  on  the  bank  of 
a  lake,  fishing.  A  native  approaches  him  and  informs  him 
that  there  are  no  fishes  in  the  stream.  Whereupon,  the 
Englishman  stolidly  replies  that  he  is  not  fishing  for  fish,  but 
for  pleasure.  This  man  had  evidently  dissolved  the  asso- 
ciation, and  regarded  fishes,  fishing,  and  pleasure  in  the 
light  of  means  and  end.  Do  other  people  do  the  same  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  mirth  occasioned  by  his  answer  is  a 
sufficient  reply.  Indeed,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  will  or  desire 
is  never  directed  upon  a  quantum  of  pleasure,  but  always 
and  immediately  upon  the  thing  itself,  the  action,  the  change 
of  condition.  An  idea  of  the  thing  frequently  precedes  the 
desire,  but  I  never  find  in  consciousness  an  idea  of  the 
pleasure  as  such,  to  which  the  thing  is  related  as  a  mere 
means.  Moreover,  we  may  even  say  that,  as  a  rule,  the 
desire  produces  the  idea  of  the  thing. 

The  following  argument  also  seems  to  make  for  the  view 
that  the  idea  of  pleasure  does  not  set  the  will  in  motion.  If 
it  were  so,  we  should  have  to  expect  that  the  more  vivid  and 
distinct  the  pleasure  in  consciousness,  the  greater  the  im- 
pression which  it  makes.  Now,  the  pleasure  is  usually 
intensest  immediately  after  the  enjoyment.  Hence,  the  desire 
for  pleasure  ought  to  be  most  intense  at  that  time.  The 
reverse  is  obviously  the  case.  After  the  meal  the  idea  of  the 
enjoyment  does  not  excite  the  will  at  all,  which  plainly  shows 
that  the  impulse  precedes  the  pleasure.  The  idea  of  pleasure  is 
not  the  cause  of  the  impulse  or  desire,  but  the  impulse  becomes 
the  cause  of  the  pleasure  when  it  realizes  its  objective  end. 

Consequently,  hedonism  would  at  least  have  to  modify  its 
claim  and  say :  Although  pleasure  is  not  the  conscious  aim^ 


I 


256 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


it  is  the  actual  goal  which,  unbeknown  to  consciousness, 
acting  like  a  concealed  weight,  really  sets  the  machine  in 
motion.  The  things  which  appear  in  consciousness  as  the 
ultimate  ends  —  food,  honor,  riches  —  are  therefore  mere  pre- 
texts deluding  the  intellect,  while  the  will  in  reality  always 
pursues  one  thing  alone,  and  that  is  pleasure.  A  lover  leaves 
his  home  to  attend  to  some  business.  Much  to  his  own 
surprise  he  comes  to  a  place  where  there  is  a  chance  of 
meeting  his  sweetheart.  And  now  he  sees  that  his  business 
was  a  mere  pretence  on  the  part  of  his  desires  to  anticipate 
the  objections  of  his  reason.  Does  the  same  hold  true  of 
the  case  in  hand  ?  Is  pleasure  the  mistress  of  the  will,  so 
to  speak,  whom  the  will  incessantly  strives  to  meet,  deluding 
the  understanding  with  all  kinds  of  pretexts.^ 

I  know  of  no  other  way  of  proving  this  assertion  than  by 
showing  that  the  will  invariably  realizes  not  the  pretended 
but  the  real  end,  as  happened  in  our  example,  in  which  the 
lover's  hidden  yearning  was  revealed  by  the  actual  attain- 
ment of  the  goal  secretly  desired  by  him.  Can  that  be  done? 
I  do  not  believe  it.  Nay,  it  would  be  easier  to  claim  the 
reverse :  it  is  not  the  alleged  secret  end  that  is  realized,  but 
the  ostensible  one.  The  miser  may  acquire  wealth,  but  the 
pleasure  and  satisfaction  which  he  promised  himself  fail  to 
appear.  The  ambitious  man  succeeds  in  obtaining  rank  and 
honor,  decorations  and  titles,  but  the  sum-total  of  pleasure 
procured  is  meagre,  his  desires  always  exceed  the  satisfaction. 
The  reproductive  impulse  may  lead  to  the  propagation  of 
the  species,  but  its  satisfaction  brings  disappointment  and 
trouble  to  the  individual. 

But,  some  one  may  say,  perhaps  all  that  is  so ;  neverthe- 
less the  fact  remains  that  whatever  we  do  or  strive  for,  we 
do  or  strive  for  because  it  yields  or  promises  satisfaction.  If 
it  were  not  so,  should  we  do  it  ?  If  there  were  no  satisfac- 
tion and  its  opposite,  all   striving  would  cease,  everything 

1  [See  Sidgwick,  Methods,  pp.  53  f.  —  Tr.] 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


257 


would  be  indifferent  to  us.  —  But  what  else  does  this  mean 
than  that  feelings  of  pleasure  ultimately  determine  all  dis- 
tinctions of  value  ? 

Indeed,  of  that  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  if  there  were  no  feel- 
ings of  satisfaction  and  tlieir  opposites,  there  would  be  no 
distinctions  of  value.  Good  and  bad  would  be  meaningless 
words,  or  rather  we  should  never  use  them.  The  proposition : 
That  is  good  which  satisfies  a  will,  is  so  true  that  we  may 
call  it  an  identical  one.  But  the  proposition  :  Pleasure  or  sat- 
isfaction is  the  end  for  the  sake  of  which  all  things  are 
desired,  does  not  seem  to  me  adequately  to  express  it.  It  is 
not  satisfaction  or  pleasure  that  is  desired,  but  pleasure  is  a 
sign  that  the  will  has  realized  wliat  it  wills.  It  is  pure 
tautology  to  answer  the  question.  What  is  the  final  goal  of 
the  will  ?  by  saying  that  satisfaction  is  the  goal,  —  as  much  so 
as  to  answer  the  question,  How  is  the  will  ultimately 
satisfied  ?  by  saying :  By  satisfaction.  Of  course,  that  is  true  ; 
but  the  information  will  hardly  satisfy  the  questioner.  What 
he  wants  to  know  is  :  What  is  the  objective  content  that  satis- 
fies the  will  ?  Aristotle  long  ago  discovered  the  true  relation 
obtaining  between  pleasure  and  the  will :  Pleasure  is  not  the 
goal,  but  a  uniform  accompaniment  of  the  will,  a  sign,  as  it 
were,  that  the  end  has  been  realized.  In  pleasure  the  will 
becomes  conscious  of  itself  and  its  realization ;  but  to  call  this 
consciousness  the  good  itself  is  as  tautologous  as  to  say :  Not 
the  thing,  but  the  value  which  it  has  is  valuable,  not  the  activity 
or  the  sport,  but  the  satisfaction  which  it  yields,  is  satisfactory. 

The  hedonistic  theory  appears  in  another  phase,  that  is,  in 
a  negative  form.  What  uniformly  prompts  living  beings  to 
action  is  not  the  idea  of  pleasure,  but  the  pain  or  discomfort 
experienced  by  them.  Freedom  from  pain  is,  therefore,  the 
final  and  universal  aim  of  all  striving.^ 

1  [This  is  the  view  of  Hegesias,  the  Cyrenaic,  and  of  Schopenhauer.  See  the 
chapter  on  Pessimism,  pp.  291  ff.  of  this  work ;  also  Rolph,  Biologlsche  Prob- 
lertie.  —  Tr.] 

17 


258 


CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 


i' 


But  this  form  of  the  theory  likewise  seems  to  me  unable  to 
explain  the  facts.  Pain  and  discomfort  doubtless  frequently 
appear  in  consciousness  as  spurs  to  action.  The  burning 
wound  impels  the  sufferer  to  seek  relief;  tedium  {Langeweih) 
consumes  the  idler  and  compels  him  to  seek  diversion  or 
troubles.  But  is  this  universally  the  case  ?  Is  it  always  an 
actual  or  anticipated  feeling  of  discomfort  that  urges  us  to 
action  ?  Was  it  a  feeling  of  discomfort  that  compelled  Goethe 
to  make  poetry,  and  Diirer  to  paint  ?  Is  it  pain  that  forces 
the  child  to  play  ?  I  do  not  believe  we  can  say  so.  No,  the 
impulse  is  at  first  painless ;  the  pain  ensues  only  in  case  the 
impulse  is  not  satisfied ;  very  often  there  is  no  sign  of  pain 
even  at  the  moment  when  the  impulse  begins  to  act  itself  out. 
The  peasant  does  not  wait  until  hunger  impels  him  to  cultivate 
his  fields  ;  he  sees  the  sun  rise,  he  breathes  the  air  of  spring, 
and  can  hardly  wait  for  the  time  to  go  to  work.  Is  this  a 
feeling  of  pain  ?  It  may  become  so  when  obstacles  are  placed 
between  the  desire  and  its  satisfaction,  but  it  is  not  pain.  On 
the  contrary,  the  hopeful  impulse  is  a  joyful  feeling ;  to  look 
forward  to  something  with  pleasure  is  not  to  experience 
pain. 

Hence,  I  do  not  believe  that  a  feeling,  be  it  a  conscious 
pain  or  an  anticipated  pleasure,  is  the  invariable  cause  of 
striving  and  action.  Nay,  the  reverse  is  the  case :  Impulse 
or  will  is  primary ;  feeling,  on  the  other  hand,  secondary. 
Pleasure  accompanies  the  realization  of  the  objective  end  ; 
pain,  its  obstruction  or  failure.  This  is  what  biology  teaches, 
as  I  shall  show  presently. 

2.  The  hedonistic  theory  also  presents  its  thesis  in  a  slightly 
modified  form :  It  is  not  pleasure  in  the  abstract  that  is  uni- 
versally desired,  but  a  pleasurable  activity  or  a  pleasure- 
giving  good.  Every  creature  at  every  moment  decides  to 
strive  for  and  to  do  that  of  which  it  happens  to  have  the  most 
pleasurable  idea  at  the  time.  This  notion  undoubtedly  comes 
much  nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  other.     And  yet  I  cannot 


THE   HIGHEST   GOOD 


259 


accept  the  statement  as  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the 
facts,  because  it  lays  too  much  stress  on  presentation.  I 
believe,  Schopenhauer  is  right  in  saying  that  the  will  does  not 
originally  presuppose  presentation.  Certainly  not  in  animal 
life,  where  action  is  originally  governed  by  blind  striving. 
Nor  does  ideation  play  such  a  very  prominent  part  in  human 
life.  It  neither  creates  the  original  goal  of  the  will,  nor  does 
it  always  guide  the  will  in  action.  Habit  is  the  greatest  guide 
of  action.  Perhaps  it  would  be  safer  to  say  :  Man  invariably 
does  that  which  agrees  with  his  purposes  and  wishes  and  at 
the  same  time  meets  with  the  least  resistance  from  the  con- 
stitution of  his  inner  life  and  his  external  circumstances. 
This  naturally  yields  him  satisfaction,  but  whether  it  gives 
him  the  greatest  amount  of  satisfaction  possible  for  him  at 
that  moment  cannot,  of  course,  be  proved.  He  may  decide  in 
favor  of  a  life  of  ease  ;  and  it  is  at  least  doubtful  whether  that 
would  give  him  the  maximum  of  pleasure. 

Moreover,  I  should  say,  the  formula  is  apt  to  obliterate  the 
distinction  between  wishing  and  willing.  We  may  will  what 
does  not  appear  in  presentation  as  pleasant  or  pleasurable, 
and  may,  conversely,  reject  that  which,  for  the  moment,  has 
the  greatest  attraction  for  our  desires.  I  will  not  deny  that 
such  cases  may  also  be  explained  from  the  hedonistic  stand- 
point. Nevertheless,  the  difference  between  sensuous  fear  and 
the  respect  for  duty,  between  animal  desire  and  moral  voli- 
tion, between  the  pathological  feeling  of  pleasure  and  the 
feeling  of  satisfaction  with  a  noble  deed,  is  so  great  that  we 
can  easily  understand  why  many  moralists  regard  it  as  a 
generic  difference,  which  will  not  allow  us  to  embrace  these 
feelings  under  a  common  head.  This  is  the  view  of  Kant 
and  Herbart,  with  which  Steinthal  agrees  when  he  distin- 
guishes between  formal  and  pathological  pleasure. 

Finally,  it  must  also  be  added  that  pain  and  painful  activity 
are  indispensable  to  human  life.  Hence,  the  notion  of  pleas- 
ure or  satisfaction  would,  in  a  measure,  have  to  be  extended 


260 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


1'4 


SO  as  to  include  the  painful.     We  cannot,  in  my  opinion, 
doubt  it.     If  a  god  were  to  offer  to  eliminate  from  our  lives 
all  pain  and  everything  that  causes  pain,  we  should  most 
likely  at  first  be  strongly  tempted  to  accept  the  offer.     When 
we  are  overburdened  with  work  and  care,  when  pain  lays  hold 
upon  us  and  we  are  transfixed  with  fear,  we  feel  as  though 
nothing  could  be  better  than  a  life  of  rest  and  security  and 
peace.     But  I  believe  a  trial  would  soon  cause  us  to  regret 
our  choice,  and  make  us  long  for  our  old  life  with  all  its 
troubles  and  sorrows  and  pains  and  fears.     A  life  absolutely 
free  from  pain  and  fear  would,  so  long  as  we  are  what  we 
are,  soon  become  insipid  and  intolerable.     For  if  the  causes 
of  pain  were  eliminated,  life  would  be  devoid  of  all  danger, 
conflict,  and  failure,  —  exertion   and   struggle,  the   love   of 
adventure,  the  longing  for  battle,  the  triumph  of  victory,  all 
would  be  gone.     Life  would  be  pure  satisfaction  without  ob- 
stacles, success  without  resistance.     We  should  grow  as  tired 
of  all  this  as  we  do  of  a  game  which  we  know  we  are  going  to 
win.    What  chess  player  would  be  willing  to  play  with  an 
opponent  whom  he  knows  he  will  beat  ?    What  hunter  would 
enjoy  a  chase  in  which  he  had  a  chance  to  shoot  at  every  step 
he  took,  and  every  shot  was  bound  to  hit  ?    Uncertainty,  diffi- 
culty, and  failure   are   as  necessary  in  a  game,  if  it  is  to 
interest  and  satisfy  us,  as  good  luck  and  victory. 

Well,  the  same  holds  true  of  life.  The  lion  in  the  desert, 
suffering  from  hunger  and  thirst,  frost  and  heat,  may  perhaps 
think :  How  happy  I  should  be  if  only  I  could  dwell  in  a  safe 
cave  with  game  enough  about  me  to  satisfy  my  daily  needs. 
Before  he  knows  it,  he  is  lodged  in  a  most  comfortable  house 
in  a  beautiful  garden,  where  he  receives  the  best  possible  treat- 
ment. Even  his  lioness  has  not  been  forgotten.  At  first  he 
likes  the  arrangement.  But  soon  he  finds  his  beautiful  cage, 
which  is  constructed  according  to  all  the  rules  of  lion-hygiene, 
somewhat  narrow  and  tiresome.  His  keeper  observes  his 
dissatisfied  mien,  so  a  large  park  is   placed  at  his  disposal 


THE   HIGHEST  GOOD 


261 


with  the  finest  game  for  him  to  prey  upon.  But  he  soon 
wearies  of  the  ease  and  certainty  of  the  chase.  He  has  every- 
thing, but  he  does  not  feel  at  ease.  What  is  lacking  ?  Well, 
he  is  without  the  very  things  which  he  desired  to  get  away 
from ;  what  he  wants  is  to  prowl  around  and  to  be  hungry, 
the  excitement  of  the  real  chase  and  the  fight ;  he  misses  the 
desert.  —  Who  knows  but  what  the  sons  of  the  desert  who 
fell  in  the  battles  of  Mohammed  yearned  for  the  desert  and 
the  strife,  after  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  Paradise  for  three 
days  ? 

Poetry  is  a  mirror  of  human  life  and  of  the  will  which 
manifests  itself  in  it.  What  productions  do  we  like  best? 
Those  which  portray  a  life  of  ease  and  peace,  comfort  and 
universal  benevolence  ?  Wieland's  Aristippus  is  one  of  the 
few  books  of  this  kind.  Aristippus  and  Lais,  Cleonidas  and 
Musarion,  and  whatever  the  names  of  the  characters  in  the 
novel  may  be,  have  everything  that  the  heart  can  desire. 
They  are  rich,  they  live  in  beautiful  mansions  and  villas, 
equipped  with  everything  that  nature  and  art  can  supply. 
They  are  beautiful  and  strong,  they  are  intelligent  and  witty, 
possessing  such  powers  of  observation  and  expression  as  never 
to  be  at  a  loss  for  the  best  sort  of  amusement.  They  have 
the  happiest  temperaments  in  the  world,  being  equally  willing 
to  entertain  others  and  to  be  entertained  themselves  ;  they 
love  each  other  tenderly  but  without  passion,  and  therefore 
look  upon  what  would  excite  pangs  of  jealousy  in  others  with 
the  equanimity  of  the  sage,  who  is  no  more  affected  by  the 
alteration  of  love  than  by  an  interesting  event  in  nature. 
Finally,  both  Lais  as  well  as  Aristippus  have  constructed  a 
system  of  philosophy  adapted  to  their  lives :  "  It  is  my  natural 
mission,"  thus  Lais  philosophizes  in  a  letter  to  her  friends,^ 
"to  make  men  happy  without  being  married  to  them.  It 
would  be  foolish  modesty  on  my  part  were  I  to  deny  that  I 
understand  the  art  of  making  happy  whomever  I  please,  and 

1  Vol.  III.,  fragment  26. 


262 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


u 


that  nature  was  not  niggardly  in  bestowing  upon  me  the  gifts 
necessary  to  accomplish  this.     I  am  also  willing  to  confess 
that  the  consciousness  of  having  made  a  worthy  man  happy 
may,  for  a  short  time,  arouse  in  me  the  pleasant  illusion  that 
I  am  happy  too.      But  that  both  the  pleasure  which  I  give 
and  the  pleasure  which  I  receive  in  return  is  indeed  a  mere 
illusion,  —  of  that  the  few  persons  with  whom  I  have  experi- 
mented are  as  convinced  as  I  am.     This  must  seem  unnatural 
to  you  honest  housewives,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact,  and  I 
would   not  have   it   otherwise.      Nature,  who,  like   a  good 
mother,  takes  care  that  none  of  her  children  shall  be  treated 
too  niggardly,  has  arranged  things  so  that  no  one  would  vol- 
untarily exchange  his  ego  for  another's.     So  it  is  with  me ; 
being  what  I  am,  I  gracefully  yield  to  Cleonis  and  thank  her 
for  having  taken  from  me  the  burden  of  making  my  friend 
Aristippus  the  happiest  of  men."     Accompanying  the  letter  is 
a  casket  of  pearls :   "  You  will  be  somewhat  frightened,  but  I 
am  so  rich  in  such  trifles  that  you  need  not  worry  about  their 
value.    The  pearls  are  absolutely  alike  in  purity,  size,  and 
form.     You  will  therefore  simply  have  to  count  them  and 
divide  them  among  yourselves  in  a  sisterly  fashion.     You  can 
cast  lots  for  the  casket."  ^ 
Why  is  Aristippus  such  a  tiresome  book  ?    Because  it  is 

1  Some  biographies  remind  us  of  Wieland's  Aristippus;  for  instance,  J.  C. 
Bluntschli's  autobiography  {Denkwiirdigkeiten  aus  ineinem  Leben,  3  vols.,  1882). 
Bluntschli  was  a  talented  and  amiable  man,  a  healthy  optimistic  politician  and 
philosopher.  He  took  part  in  everything :  he  was  grand  master  of  the  Masons, 
founder  of  the  Protestant  Society,  member  of  the  congress  for  the  codification  of 
international  laws,  he  was  First  Speaker  and  honorable  President  in  all  the 
meetings  of  both  societies,  President  of  the  Rhenish  Credit  Bank,  a  member  of 
the  Upper  House  in  Baden,  a  famous  Professor  at  the  Heidelberg  University, 
a  celebrated  writer  on  jurisprudence  and  politics,  a  member  of  seven  academies, 
an  honorary  doctor  of  five  universities  (Vienna,  Moscow,  Oxford,  Lahore,  and 
member  of  the  University  of  St.  Petersburg),  knight  of  eight  or  more  orders, 
he  was  honored  and  congratulated  on  numerous  anniversaries,  his  works  were 
translated  into  eight  languages,  he  was  successful  in  everything,  he  met  with 
only  one  little  disappointment :  in  spite  of  repeated  attempts,  he  never  succeeded 
in  becoming  Prime  Minister;  but  he  bore  this  disappointment  gracefully.  —  A 
happy  life  in  truth,  and  an  enviable  one.    And  yet  — 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


263 


untrue  ?  Perhaps.  But  why,  aside  from  the  trivial  senti- 
mentalities  of  Lais,  are  we  not  gratified  at  the  illusion  of  such 
perfect  happiness?  I  think  it  is  because  we  ourselves  should 
find  such  a  life  unbearable.  It  would  fail  to  exercise  and 
satisfy  the  most  powerful  impulses  of  our  nature.  Who  would 
care  to  live  without  opposition  and  struggle?  Would  men 
prize  truth  itself  as  they  do,  if  it  were  attained  without  effort 
and  kept  alive  without  battle  ?  To  battle  and  to  make  sacri- 
fices for  one's  chosen  cause  constitutes  a  necessary  element  of 
human  life.  Carlyle  states  this  truth  in  a  beautiful  passage 
in  his  book  on  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship :  "  It  is  a  calumny  to 
say  that  men  are  roused  to  heroic  actions  by  ease,  hope  of 
pleasure,  recompense,  —  sugar-plums  of  any  kind  in  this 
world  or  the  next.  In  the  meanest  mortal  there  lies  some- 
thing nobler.  The  poor  swearing  soldier  hired  to  be  shot  has 
his  '  honor  of  a  soldier,'  different  from  drill,  regulations,  and 
the  shilling  a  day.  It  is  not  to  taste  sweet  things,  but  to  do 
noble  and  true  deeds,  and  vindicate  himself  under  God's 
heaven  as  a  God-made  man,  that  the  poorest  son  of  Adam 
dimly  longs.  Show  him  the  way  of  doing  that,  the  dullest 
day-drudge  kindles  into  a  hero.  They  wrong  man  greatly 
who  say  he  is  to  be  seduced  by  ease.  Difficulty,  abnegation, 
martyrdom,  death,  are  the  allurements  that  act  on  the  heart 

of  man." 

To  be  sure,  they  are  not  the  only  influences,  we  must  add  ; 
yet  they  influence  all.  And  that  is  why  Wieland's  novel  is 
tiresome,  why  epics  and  dramas  which  deal  with  passions  and 
conflicts,  with  victory  and  death,  irresistibly  attract  and  move 
the  hearts  of  men.  Here  they  find  their  life's  ideal  portrayed 
and  not  in  the  idyllic  and  the  bucolic.  Aristotle  discusses  the 
question  why  the  contemplation  of  the  painful  and  horrible  in 
the  tragedy  pleases  us.  He  thinks  it  is  because  it  arouses 
feelings  of  fear  and  compassion.  These  emotions,  too,  must 
be  exercised,  and,  by  affording  an  opportunity  for  this,  the 
tragedy  gives  us  relief.    To  tell  the  whole  truth,  Aristotle 


m 


264 


CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 


should  have  added  that  the  tragedy  also  excites  other  power- 
ful emotions  —  anger  and  indignation,  love  of  power  and 
revenge,  remorse  and  despair,  love  and  sacrifice,  magnanimity 
and  mercy,  triumph  and  courage ;  in  short,  all  the  deep  feel- 
ings and  impulses  which  slumber  in  the  heart  of  every  human 
being.  Nature,  which  yearns  for  the  realization  of  these  feel- 
ings and  impulses  in  actual  life,  finds  relief  when  they  are 
sympathetically  aroused  by  the  poem. 

Then  shall  we  say  that  even  fear  and  pity  may,  at  times 
at  least  and  under  certain  circumstances,  be  pleasurable  feel- 
ings ?  And  is  the  sorrow  which  we  feel  at  the  death  of  a 
beloved  one,  and  which  the  heart  would  not  exchange  for  all 
the  treasures  of  the  world,  not  a  feeling  of  pain,  but  a  feeling 
of  pleasure?  I  believe  that  would  be  a  rather  curious 
notion.  No,  if  we  may  accept  the  evidence  of  self-conscious- 
ness, a  maximum  of  pleasurable  feelings  or  a  minimum  of 
painful  feelings  is  not  the  goal  which  attracts  the  will  of  man ; 
what  he  strives  after  is  to  live  his  life  in  accordance  with  his 
ideal.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  not  revealed  by  introspection  as 
the  positive  or  negative  ends  of  life,  but  as  states  of  conscious- 
ness which  accompany  actions  and  in  which  the  will  becomes 

aware  of  itself  and  its  bent. 

3.  The  testimony  of  self-consciousness  concerning  the 
significance  of  pleasure  and  pain  is  confirmed  by  biology.  The 
naturalist  has  little  trouble  in  explaining  the  part  which 
pleasure  and  pain  play  in  the  economy  of  life. 

As  for  pain,  we  may  say  that  it  originally  accompanies  the 
destruction  of  vital  processes,  which  may  be  caused  by  violent 
injuries  or  by  the  disturbance  of  the  inner  equilibrium.  Its 
significance  is  obvious :  it  tends  to  preserve  life  by  impelling 
the  animal  to  seek  safety  in  flight  or  defence.  Let  us  suppose 
that  two  living  beings  resemble  each  other  in  every  respect, 
except  that  one  is  sensitive  to  pain,  the  other  not.  The 
former  would  evidently  stand  a  much  better  chance  of  being 
preserved,  provided,  of  course,  the  conditions  of  life  were 


THE   HIGHEST   GOOD 


265 


. 


equal.     The  latter  animal  would  be  surprised  by  danger  and 
perish,  while  the  former  would  be  warned  by  pain  and  strive 
to  escape  from  the  disturbing  cause.     Insensitiveness  to  pain 
would  have  the  same  effect  as  the  absence  of  a  sense-organ. 
—  Pleasure   seems  to    be  the  original  concomitant  of  two 
animal  functions,  nutrition  and  reproduction.     In  more  highly 
developed  animals,  the  pleasurable  feeling  extends  to  allied 
functions.    Thus  the  movements  which  precede  the  taking  of 
food,  the  chase,  using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense,  includ- 
ing the  scent,  the  pursuit,  the  seizure,  the  laceration  of  the 
prey,  are   also   accompanied  by   feelings   of   pleasure.     The 
pleasure  which  accompanies  the  function  of  reproduction  also 
extends  to  the  care  of  offspring.      The  significance  of  both 
these  functions  in  the  animal  economy  is  very  plain.     They 
are  the  immediate  conditions  of  preservation ;  in  the  former 
case,  of  the  preservation  of  the  individual,  in  the  latter  case, 
of  that  of  the  species.     Organic  life  consists  in  a  continuous 
process  of  disintegration  and  reparation.     Waste  material  is 
constantly   given  off,  and  new  elements  are  taken  up  and 
assimilated.     In  case  the  latter  process  does  not  take  place, 
death  soon  ensues.     The  social  life  of  the  species  reveals  a 
similar  behavior:  the  waste  material  is   constantly  passing 
out,  —  that  is,  individuals  die ;  but  the  equilibrium  is  main- 
tained  by  the  reproduction  of  offspring;  otherwise  the  species 
would  soon  disappear. 

What,  then,  is  the  significance  of  pleasure  ?  The  biologist 
will  not  hesitate  for  an  answer.  Just  as  pain  serves  as  a 
warning,  pleasure  serves  as  a  bait.  In  pain  the  will  becomes 
aware  of  danger,  in  pleasure  it  becomes  aware  of  the  further- 
ance of  life.  The  former  warns  it  to  seek  safety  in  flight,  the 
latter,  to  continue  on  its  path.  Pain  and  pleasure  are,  we 
might  say,  the  most  primitive  forms  of  the  knowledge  of  good 

and  evil. 

The  will  or  impulse  as  such  does  not  presuppose  the  pres- 
ence of  feelings  or  of  intelligence.    The  newly-hatched  chick 


m 


IV. 


HV 


266 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


immediately  begins  to  pick  up  grains  of  wheat.  It  surely 
does  not  bring  along  with  it  into  its  new  stage  of  existence  a 
feeling  of  painful  hunger,  or  an  idea  of  the  pleasure  produced 
by  the  introduction  of  food.  Impulses  govern  action  just  as 
other  natural  forces  govern  the  falling  of  a  stone,  or  the 
formation  of  a  crystal,  or  the  growth  of  a  plant.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  sexual  impulse.  The  individual  who 
has  just  arrived  at  the  age  of  puberty  is  driven  by  a  blind 
impulse  to  exercise  the  functions  which  result  in  the  preser- 
vation  of  the  species,  without  knowing  beforehand  the  feelings 
that  will  arise.  Perhaps,  scarcely  any  feeling  accompanies 
the  function  in  the  lower  stages  of  animal  life.  But  as  life 
develops,  the  sensibility  increases ;  in  the  higher  animals  and 
in  man  every  activity  is  accompanied  by  a  specific  feeling. 
This  feeling  has  either  a  painful  or  a  pleasurable  tone,  accord- 
ing as  action  is  retarded  or  furthered,  according  as  it  impedes 
or'^promotes  life.  The  division  of  the  feelings  into  painful  and 
pleasurable  is  as  unsatisfactory  to  the  biologist  as  the  classifi- 
cation of  plants  as  herbs  and  weeds.  Pleasures  and  pains 
are  merely  characteristic  tones  of  feeling,  which  correspond  to 
the  different  functions,  or  in  which  the  functions  first  become 
conscious  of  themselves. 

In  a  higher  stage  of  mental  evolution  intelligence  rises  from 
feeling  and  above  it.  Its  original  purpose  is  merely  to  accom- 
plish more  perfectly  what  feeling  accomplishes,  that  is,  to  in- 
struct the  will  concerning  what  is  wholesome  or  unwholesome. 
Sensations  may  be  characterized  sls  anticipations  of  feelings. 
The  sense  of  touch  anticipates  the  pain  occasioned  by  bodily 
injuries.  Taste  is  a  kind  of  predigestion ;  it  decides,  before 
the  object  is  taken  into  the  body,  whether  it  is  wholesome  or 
not.  Taste  is  the  specific  feeling  which  accompanies  the 
function  of  nutrition,  and  depends  upon  the  peculiar  nature 
of  the  food,  or  to  be  exact,  upon  the  process  of  assimilation 
which  begins  on  the  tongue.  It  is  always  either  pleasant  or 
unpleasant,  and  consequently  either  excites   or  inhibits  the  , 


THE  HIGHEST   GOOD 


26T 


i 


will.  Smell  is  a  kind  of  preliminary  taste,  a  taste  acting  at 
a  distance.  From  the  minutest  particle  emitted  by  an 
object,  it  tells  whether  the  object  can  be  assimilated  or  not, 
as  well  as  whether  it  is  friendly  or  hostile.  The  eye  and  the 
ear  do  not  have  to  come  in  contact  with  matter ;  they  recog- 
nize the  nature  of  the  distant  object  from  its  slightest  move- 
ments. Originally  they,  too,  are  a  means  to  the  knowledge 
of  what  is  wholesome  and  unwholesome;  hence,  their  sen- 
sations still  have  feeling-attachments,  pleasure  and  pain. 
These,  however,  are  not  very  prominent ;  the  sensations  of 
the  objective  senses,  as  the  eye  and  ear  have  aptly  been 
called,  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  direct  motives  of  the  will ; 
they  guide  the  will  by  furnishing  it  with  more  remote  signs 
of  what  is  beneficial  or  dangerous.  The  understanding, 
finally,  or  the  faculty  of  deducing  the  unknown  from  the  data 
of  perception,  is  almost  entirely  without  feeling.  Its  primary 
purpose,  however,  is  to  assist  the  will  in  obtaining  what  is 
beneficial  and  avoiding  what  is  harmful. 

The  biologist,  therefore,  will  not  regard  pleasure  as  the  ab- 
solute end  of  life,  but  will  consider  both  pleasure  and  pain  as 
means  of  guiding  the  will.  In  the  feeling  of  pleasure  the  will 
becomes  conscious  of  the  furtherance  of  life  by  the  exercise 
of  a  function.  Hence,  pleasure  is  not  a  good  in  itself,  but  a 
sign  that  a  good  has  been  realized.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  un- 
derstand why  the  question.  What  is  the  significance  of  pain  ? 
did  not  prevent  the  hedonistic  conception  of  the  significance  of 
pleasure.  ,  Both  of  these  feelings  evidently  belong  to  the  same 
category.  Now,  if  pleasure  is  an  absolute  end,  what  is  pain  V 
Something  with  absolutely  no  purpose?  Manifestly  not. 
Pain  is  evidently  a  very  purposive  means  of  warning  the  an- 
imal against  the  harmful.  Pleasure  will,  therefore,  have  to 
be  explained  similarly. 

Finally,  the  biologist  might  also  point  out  how  decidedly 
opposed  nature  is  to  being  interpreted  in  the  hedonistic  sense. 
When  the  impulse  is  satisfied,  the  pleasure  ceases.     After  the 


268 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


food  needed  for  preservation  has  been  eaten,  the  feelings  of 
pleasure  cease,  and  opposite  feelings  soon  arise.  Pleasure 
can  be  aroused  to  a  certain  degree,  only  by  stimulating  the 
oro-ans  which  are  secondarily  connected  with  nutrition.  The 
same  may  be  observed  in  the  impulse  which  tends  to  the 
preservation  of  the  species.  But  whenever  the  organs  of 
preservation  are  used  as  instruments  of  pleasure,  nature  pun- 
ishes the  abuse  with  disturbances  and  disease,  and  in  case  her 
hints  are  not  followed,  with  the  destruction  of  the  organs  and 
ultimately  of  the  individual  who  obstinately  persists  in  mis- 
understanding their  purpose. 

4.   Pleasure,  then,  is   not  the  absolute  goal  of   the   will. 
Nor  does  the  evaluating  judgment  of  the  impartial  spectator 
seem  to  me  to  make  pleasure  in  itself,  regardless  of  its  cause, 
the  thing  of  absolute  worth.     Let  us  suppose  that  we  could 
distil  a  drug  like  opium,  capable  of  arousing  joyful  dreams, 
without,  however,  producing  harmful  effects  in  the  intoxicated 
one  or  his  surroundings.     Should  we  recommend  the  use  of 
the  drug,  and  praise  the  discoverer  as  having  made  life  more 
valuable  ?  Perhaps  not  even  a  hedonistic  moral  philosopher 
would  do  that.     Why  not  ?    Because  the  pleasure  is  illusory  ? 
But  pleasure  is  pleasure,  whatever  be  its  cause.     Or,  because 
the  philosopher  has  found  out  by  computation  that  the  pleas- 
ures of  our  sober  waking  life  are  still  greater  ?     It  would  not 
be  easy  to  prove  it  in  the  example  assumed.     The  simple  rea- 
son is  that  such  pleasures  would  be  "  unnatural,"  and  a  life 
composed  of  them  would  no  longer  be  a  "human"  life.    How- 
ever rich  in  pleasure  it  might  be,  it  would  be  an  absolutely 
worthless  life  for  a  human  will  and  human  standards. 

Perhaps  the  philosopher  will  reply  :  Yes,  but  that  is  simply 
because  a  person  addicted  to  such  pleasures  would  neglect  his 
duties  to  others,  and  consequently  decrease  the  maximum  of 
pleasure,  even  though  he  might  greatly  increase  his  own 
pleasure.  Well,  then,  let  us  change  the  example  a  little  ;  let 
us  suppose  that  the  drug  will,  without  expense  and  trouble, 


1:  m 

■I 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


269 


arouse  in  an  entire  people  a  permanent  state  of  pleasurable 
dreams.     Should  we  celebrate  the  discoverer  as  a  benefactor 
of  the  human  race  ?    Perhaps  it  might  be  shown  to  our  sat- 
isfaction that  a  nation's  best  means  of  realizing  permanent 
happiness  would  be  to  submit  absolutely  to  an  absolutely  be- 
nevolent government.     Let  us  suppose  that  a  man,  the  Pla- 
tonic philosopher  for  example,  had  discovered  the  secret  of 
making  a  nation  absolutely  obedient.     Should  we  be  willing 
to  place  our  people  in  his  power  ?    The  Jesuits  are  said  to 
have  thought  and  acted  for  their  native  subjects  in  Paraguay 
in  every  regard,  and  to  have  guided  them,  daily  and  hourly, 
and  according  to  all  the  rules  of  hygiene,  in  their  labors  and  in 
their  enjoyments,  in  their  waking  and  sleeping.    Let  us  sup- 
pose that  they  succeeded,  as  we  are  told  that  they  did,  in 
absolutely    satisfying    the   governed.      Will    the  hedonistic 
philosopher  grant  that  such  a  regime  is  the  most  perfect  and 
desirable  solution  of  social  and  political  problems,  and  that 
the  life  of  these  well-behaved  and  contented  Indians  repre- 
sents the  highest  goal  of  human  striving  ?    If  so,  he  will  most 
likely  also  regard  German  statesmanship  as  having  performed 
its  mission  when  the  entire  German  people  shall  have  been 
transformed  into  a  lot  of  well-behaved  and  obedient  Philis- 
tines, who  drink  their  mug  of  beer  every  morning  and  play 
their  little  game  of  Skat,  and  in  the  evening  play  their  little 
game  of  Skat  and  again  drink  their  beer,  in  the  meantime  reg- 
ularly attending  to  their  duties  in  the  bureau  or  the  work- 
shop, and  sleeping  soundly  at  night.     And,  finally,  he  will 
also   be   compelled   to   recognize   the    sorceress   Circe,   who 
changed  the  visitors  of  her  island  into  swine,  into  well-fed  and 
thoroughly  contented  swine,  as  a  benefactress  of  humanity, 
and  deem  it  as  the  greatest  blessing  for  any  one  to  have  been 
cast  on  her   shores.     Unless   he   is  willing  to  acknowledge 
this,  he  must,  it  seems  to  me,  confess  that  pleasure  or  satis- 
faction is  not  the  thing  of  absolute  worth.    It  is  valuable  only 
in  so  far  as  it  follows  as  the  result  of  virtuous  activity ;  we 


270 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


m 


regard  it  as  base,  when  it  is  obtained  bj  stimulating  the  lower, 
sensuous  side  of  our  nature  and  bj  suppressing  our  higher 
spiritual  capacities. 

6.  Now  that  we  have  rejected  the  hedonistic  theory,  let  us 
attempt  to  give  a  positive  definition  of  the  highest  good.  We 
may  say  in  a  most  general  way  that  the  goal  at  which  the  will 
of  every  living  creature  aims,  is  the  normal  exercise  of  the  vital 
functions  which  constitute  its  nature.  Every  animal  desires  to 
live  the  life  for  which  it  is  predisposed.  Its  natural  disposi- 
tion manifests  itself  in  impulses,  and  determines  its  activity. 
The  formula  may  also  be  applied  to  man.  He  desires  to 
live  a  human  life  and  all  that  is  implied  in  it ;  that  is,  a 
mental,  historical  life^  in  which  there  is  room  for  the  exercise 
of  all  human,  mental  powers  and  virtues.  He  desires  to  play 
and  to  learn,  to  work  and  to  acquire  wealth,  to  possess  and  to 
enjoy,  to  form  and  to  create ;  he  desires  to  love  and  to  ad- 
mire, to  obey  and  to  rule,  to  fight  and  to  win,  to  make  poetry 
and  to  dream,  to  think  and  to  investigate.  And  he  desires  to 
do  all  these  things  in  tlieir  natural  order  of  development,  as 
life  provides  them.  He  desires  to  experience  the  relations  of 
the  child  to  its  parents,  of  the  pupil  to  his  teacher,  of  the  ap- 
prentice to  the  master;  and  his  will,  for  the  time  being,  finds 
the  highest  satisfaction  in  such  a  life.  He  desires  to  live  as  a 
brother  among  brothers,  as  a  friend  among  friends,  as  a  com- 
panion among  companions,  as  a  citizen  among  citizens,  and 
also  to  prove  himself  an  enemy  against  enemies.  Finally, 
he  desires  to  experience  what  the  lover,  husband,  and  father 
experience  —  he  desires  to  rear  and  educate  children  who  shall 
preserve  and  transmit  the  contents  of  his  own  life.  And 
after  he  has  lived  such  a  life  and  has  acquitted  himself  like  an 
honest  man,  he  has  realized  his  desires ;  his  life  is  complete  ; 
contentedly  he  awaits  the  end,  and  his  last  wish  is  to  be 
gathered  peacefully  to  his  fathers.  —  This  outline,  however, 
receives  its  concrete  content  from  the  historical  life  of  the 
people.    Hence  we  may  also  say:   Man's  will  seeks  to  ex- 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


271 


press  the  life  of  his  people  in  an  individual  form,  and  thus  at 
the  same  time,  to  preserve  and  enrich  the  life  of  the  people. 
In  this  way,  it  seems  to  me,  the  impartial  anthropologist 
and  biologist  would  look  at  the  matter.  The  will  of  a  living 
being  is  nothing  but  a  system  of  impulses,  the  exercise  of 
which  constitutes  the  life  of  the  species.  Every  individual 
shares  the  desire  of  the  species  to  preserve  and  promote  its 
life,  or  rather,  the  species  merely  exists  in  the  individuals, 
wJiich  live  and  act  as  its  members.  The  same  holds  true  of 
man.  In  his  case,  however,  an  ideal  self-preservative  impulse 
grows  out  of  the  primitive  animal  impulse  of  self-preservation. 
The  will-to-live,  which  in  sub-human  creatures  appears  as 
blind  impulse  or  striving,  becomes  conscious  of  itself  in  man. 
Man  has  a  conscious  idea  of  the  life  aimed  at  by  his  will ;  the 
type  which  his  life  desires  to  express  and  to  realize  hovers 
before  him  as  an  ideal.  This  he  strives  after,  this  is  the 
standard  by  which  he  measures  himself  and  his  activity.  The 
ideal  of  perfection  assumes  a  different  form  in  different 
human  beings.  The  ideal  is  different  for  the  Greek,  Roman, 
and  Hebrew ;  different  again  at  Athens  and  at  Sparta ;  it  is 
not  the  same  for  man  as  for  woman,  for  the  warrior  as  for 
the  scholar,  for  the  sailor  as  for  the  peasant.  Only  in  certain 
fundamental  features  is  it  the  same  in  all,  just  as  the  funda- 
mental anatomical-physiological  type  of  the  human  body  is 
common  to  all  men.  The  higher  the  development  of  mental 
life,  the  more  differentiated  and  individualized  the  inner  life 
becomes ;  just  as  the  outward  form,  corresponding  to  the  inner 
development,  becomes  more  and  more  individualized.  The 
ideal  is  also  conceived  with  different  degrees  of  clearness  by 
different  individuals.  Individuals  also  differ  in  the  power  and 
certainty  with  which  they  guard  their  ideals  against  the  action 
of  particular  momentary  impulses,  and  govern  their  lives 
according  to  their  ideals.  But  in  some  form  or  other  such  an 
ideal  is  present  and  active  in  every  man  ;  the  will  has  before  it 
some  picture  or  other  of  what  his  innermost  nature  desires, 


272 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


it 


.i\ 


a  picture  which  reveals  itself  in  his  mode  of  life  and  in  his 
judgment  of  himself. 

Vor  jedem  steht  ein  Bild  des,  das  er  werden  soil ; 
So  lang  er  das  nicht  ist,  ist  nicht  sein  Friede  vol!.* 

Not  only  the  individual,  but  the  nation  too  has  an  ideal  of 
what  it  desires  to  be.  The  ideal  expresses  itself  in  its  religion 
and  poetry.  The  gods  and  heroes  represent  the  types  of  per- 
fection. At  a  later  stage  of  development  historical  recollec- 
tions are  added,  and  paint  a  comprehensive  picture  of  the 
nation's  past,  a  picture  which  forms  a  poetical  ideal  in  the 
popular  consciousness.  But  the  historical  collective  life  of  an 
entire  period  of  civilization  and  of  the  aggregate  of  nations  is 
also  governed  by  ideas.  Types  of  character  and  life  spring 
up,  gain  possession  of  all  hearts,  move  the  thoughts  of  men, 
and,  at  last,  control  affairs.  Think  of  the  Humanistic  move- 
ment in  the  fifteenth  century  and  its  new  ideal;  of  the 
Reformation  and  its  new  type  of  Christian  faith  and  life  ;  or 
of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  and  its  ideal  of  power  and  dignity, 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  its  new  ideal  of  a  natural  and 
rational  mode  of  life.  New  ideas  of  human  culture  realized 
themselves  in  these  great  historical  epochs,  and  seizing  the 
individual  wills,  forced  them  into  harmony  with  it. 

Here  we  plainly  see  that  the  will  unconditionally  strives  to 
realize  the  idea  or  the  type.  A  people  desires  freedom,  or 
power  or  honor,  or  whatever  catch-word  may  designate  the 
cherished  ideal,  and  desires  it  absolutely,  not  for  the  sake  of 
something  else,  say  pleasure  or  happiness.  True,  all  action 
tending  towards  the  realization  of  the  ideal  yields  satisfaction. 
But  no  one  cares  whether  this  represents  the  greatest  amount 
of  pleasure  obtainable  by  the  whole.  A  nation  does  not 
reckon  the  cost  of  its  ideal,  it  does  not  compute  how  much 
happiness  may  be  won  or  lost  in  a  war  for  its  freedom  or  its 
honor,  or  even  for  its  position  among  other  nations.  In  order 
to   realize  its  controlling    ideal,  it  recklessly  sacrifices  the 

1  Buckeit. 


THE   HIGHEST  GOOD 


273 


interests  and  lives  of  individuals.  And  the  individuals  them- 
selves desire  it ;  even  though  they  dread  the  sacrifice  as  indi- 
viduals, as  members  of  the  nation  they  desire  that  their 
country  remain  true  to  itself  and  its  ideal. 

The  historical  judgment,  like  the  historical  will,  is  deter- 
mined by  this  goal.  A  nation  does  not  judge  its  own  past  by 
the  standard  of  pleasure ;  it  judges  historical  persons  and 
events  by  the  ideal  which  it  happens  to  have  at  the  time,  and 
determines  their  worth  accordingly.  Thus  our  judgment  of 
Frederick  the  Great  and  his  wars  is  not  based  on  a  computa- 
tion of  the  pleasures  and  pains  which  they  caused,  but  upon 
the  honor  and  dignity  which  the  German  people  achieved 
through  them.  We  ask  ourselves,  has  the  nation  made  any 
advance  towards  its  objective  goal  ?  Our  age  answers  the 
question  in  the  affirmative ;  the  prevailing  notion  of  the  objec- 
tive end  is  the  German  Empire  on  a  Prussian  basis.  The 
scientific  historian  follows  the  same  plan.  It  never  enters 
his  head  to  balance  pleasures  and  pains  against  each  other. 
Indeed,  this  notion  is  a  mere  fancy  in  the  heads  of  a  few 
philosophers.  But,  so  far  as  1  know,  not  one  of  them  has  ever 
tried  to  apply  it  in  practice. 

6.  The  view  here  advanced  of  the  final  goal  of  the  human 
will  and  the  ultimate  standard  of  our  judgments  of  value  is 
not  new.  It  was  thought  out  and  definitely  formulated  long 
ago,  by  Greek  moral  philosophy.  Indeed,  we  may  say  that 
all  great  ethical  systems,  with  the  single  exception  of  hedon- 
ism, advocate  it.  Plato  and  Aristotle  expressly  state :  The 
highest  good  is  life  and  action  in  harmony  with  the  idea ;  the 
eudaemonia  of  a  man  consists  in  the  possession  and  exercise 
of  all  human  virtues  and  capacities.  The  Stoa  teaches  the 
same :  Life  according  to  nature  is  the  end  of  every  being ;  for 
man,  therefore,  a  life  conforming  to  human  nature,  that  is,  to 
reason,  is  the  absolute  end  ;  in  it  he  finds  his  welfare  (evpoia 
piov),  Thomas  Aquinas  teaches  the  same :  Every  being  seeks 
its  perfection  in  accordance  with  its  nature ;  rational  creatures 

18 


274 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


■  > 


It 


seek  it  through  the  rational  will,  sensible  creatures  through 
the  sensuous  impulse,  insensible  ones  through  the  natural 
impulse.  The  same  conception  reappears  in  Hobbes  and 
Spinoza.  According  to  them,  self-preservation  is  the  goal ; 
only,  a  living  being  preserves  itself  by  living  and  acting,  and 
a  thinking  being,  Spinoza  insists,  by  thinking.  Similarly, 
Shaftesbury  and  Leibniz  declare  that  the  harmonious  devel- 
opment of  capacities  and  powers  is  the  law  of  man  as  well  as 
of  the  universe.  Kant,  too,  might  be  called  as  a  witness  for 
this  theory  :  The  real  and  innermost  essence  of  man  expresses 
itself  in  a  will,  determined  by  the  practical  reason  or  the 
consciousness  of  duty,  and  acts  in  accordance  with  its  nature. 
Likewise  Hegel  and  Schleiermacher  regard  the  great  histori- 
cal content  of  human  life  as  a  thing  of  objective  value  ;  in  so 
far  as  the  individual  participates  in  it  he  gives  a  meaning  and 
value  to  his  life  and  at  the  same  time  satisfies  the  deepest 
longings  of  his  nature. 

Darwin,  who  in  a  certain  sense  continues  the  attempt  of 
Speculative  Philosophy  to  reach  an  historical  conception  of 
the  entire  universe,  and  tries  to  solve  the  problem  by  new 
methods,  reaches  a  similar  conclusion  from  the  biological 
standpoint.  In  the  fourth  chapter  of  his  work  on  The 
Descent  of  Man,  he  examines  the  hedonistic  theory  and 
flatly  contradicts  it.  Pleasure-pain,  he  concludes,  is  neither 
the  motive  nor  the  end  of  all  action.  I  quote  the  passage  in 
question :  "  In  the  case  of  the  lower  animals  it  seems  much 
more  appropriate  to  speak  of  thei;*  social  instincts  as  having 
developed  for  the  general  good  than  for  the  general  happi- 
ness of  the  species.  The  term,  general  good,  may  be  defined 
as  the  rearing  of  the  greatest  number  of  individuals  in  full 
vigor  and  health,  with  all  their  faculties  perfect,  under  the 
conditions  to  which  they  are  subjected.  As  the  social  in- 
stincts both  of  man  and  the  lower  animals  have  no  doubt 
been  developed  by  nearly  the  same  steps,  it  would  be  advis- 
able, if  found  practicable,  to  use  the  same  definition  in  both  , 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


275 


cases,  and  to  take  as  the  standard  of  morality,  the  general 
good  or  welfare  of  the  community  rather  than  the  general 
happiness."^  Finally,  I  should  like  to  mention  that  John 
Stuart  Mill,  unconsciously,  so  closely  approximates  the 
thoughts  developed  above  that  there  is  no  longer  an  essential 
difference  between  the  two  views.  By  assuming  qualitative 
differences  in  pleasures  besides  quantitative  differences  he  at 
last  reaches  the  following  formula :  "  It  is  better  to  be 
a  human  being  dissatisfied  than  a  pig  satisfied."  ^  It  seems 
to  me  that  Mill  thereby  tacitly  abandons  the  principle  that 
pleasure  and  satisfaction  are  the  only  absolutely  valuable 
things.  It  is  no  longer  pleasure  as  such  that  is  valu- 
able, but  the  functions  to  which  it  is  attached.  When  Mill 
speaks  of  the  different  kinds  of  enjoyment,  he  really  means 
the  different  functions,  the  exercise  of  which  is  accompanied 
by  different  feelings  in  different  creatures. 

Hence,  the  old  Aristotelian  definition  of  the  final  goal  or 
the  highest  good  seems  to  me  to  be  as  satisfactory  to-day  as  it 
ever  was :  I^udoemonism  or  welfare  consists  in  the  exercise  of 
all  virtues  and  capacities,  especially  of  the  highest.^ 

7.  But,  some  one  may  say,  has  not  this  entire  discussion  been 
moving  in  a  circle  ?  At  first  it  was  said  that  the  value  of  virtue 
consisted  in  its  favorable  effects  upon  the  development  of  life. 
And  now  it  is  held  that  the  value  of  life  consists  in  the  nor- 
mal performance  of  all  functions,  or  in  the  exercise  of  capac- 
ities and  virtues.  Is  not  the  exercise  of  virtue  thus  made  an 
ultimate  end  again,  after  having  first  been  conceived  as  a 
means  ? 

I  repeat  what  was  said  before  :  the  statement  is  true.  But 
the  same  relation  everywhere  confronts  us  in  the   organic 

1  [Part  L,  chap.  IV.,  Concluding  Remarks,  p.  120.  —  Tr.] 

2  [Utilitarianism,  11th  ed.,  p.  14.  —  Tr.] 

2  [See  also  Stephen,  Science  of  Ethics,  chaps.  IV.,  IX.,  X. ;  Jhering,  vol.  II., 
pp.  95  ff. ;  Wundt,  Ethik,  pp.  493  ff . ;  HofEding,  Ethik,  VI.  ;  Williams,  Review  of 
Evolutional  Ethics,  Part  II.,  chap.  IX.;  Ziegler,  Sittliches  Sein  und  sittliches 
Werden.  ^Tr.] 


276 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


ill' 


i\ 


sphere ;  here  everything  is  both  a  means  and  an  end,  or  a 
part  of  the  end.  Heart  and  brain,  hands  and  eyes,  muscles 
and  bones,  are  means  of  preserving  bodily  life;  but  they 
are  at  the  same  time  parts  of  the  body.  The  body  docs 
not  exist  apart  from  its  organs  or  the  means  of  its  self- 
preservation ;  it  is  composed  of  these.  The  functioning  of 
each  organ  is  a  means  of  preserving  life,  and  life  at  the 
same  time  consists  in  the  functioning  of  all  the  organs. 
The  same  remarks  apply  to  a  work  of  art.  The  particular 
scenes  in  a  drama  are  essential  to  the  whole,  otherwise  they 
would  be  mere  superfluous  episodes,  but  they  are  at  the  same 
time  necessary  parts  of  the  whole,  which  is  simply  made  up 
of  all  its  parts.  So,  too,  in  the  moral  sphere,  every  excel- 
lence or  virtue  is  an  organ  of  the  whole,  and  at  the  same 
time  forms  a  part  of  life :  it  is  therefore,  like  the  whole,  an 
end  in  itself.  The  mental-moral  life  is  an  organism  in  which 
every  power  and  every  function  is  both  a  means  and  an 
end ;  everything  is  valuable  in  itself,  but  everything  receives 
additional  importance  from  its  relation  to  the  whole.  Courage 
has  value  for  life  as  a  means  of  solving  certain  problems ;  it 
cannot  be  conceived  as  an  isolated  element,  any  more  than 
the  eye  can  exist  for  itself,  but  only  as  the  organ  of  a  living 
body.  Just  as  sight,  however,  is  valuable  in  itself,  so  is  the 
exercise  of  courage  in  battle,  from  which  no  life  can  be  free, 
for,  as  the  poet  says :  ^in  MenscJi  sein,  heisst  ein  Kdmirfer 
sein.  The  same  may  be  said  of  all  virtues,  that  is,  of  all 
positive  virtues,  for  the  negative  virtues,  if  we  may  call  them 
so,  the  virtues  of  not-lying,  not-stealing,  and  not-committing- 
adultery,  are  valuable  solely  as  means.  To  refrain  from  such 
acts  is  not  good  in  itself,  but  merely  a  means  to  the  goods 
which  they  subserve :  truth  and  property  and  marriage.  The 
positive  virtues,  on  the  other  hand,  the  love  of  truth,  the 
sense  of  justice,  and  the  domestic  virtues,  are  all  both  means 
or  instruments  of  the  perfect  life  and  parts  of  its  content. 
Virtues  or  capacities  which  are  exercised  in  the  acquisition  of 


277 


knowledge  and  in  the  service  of  the  truth,  in  labor  and  in  the 
accumulation  of  wealth,  in  the  regulation  of  social  affairs,  in 
family  life  and  in  the  rearing  of  children,  are  means  to  life 
and  at  the  same  time  constitute  important  parts  of  it. 

The  Stoics  long  ago  observed  this  truth.  They  divided  goods 
into  three  classes  —  goods  which  have  absolute  worth,  goods 
which  have  value  as  means,  and,  finally,  goods  which  have 
value  both  as  means  and  ends  (tcjv  dya0wv  ra  fih  ehac  reXcKa, 
ra  Be  TronjTLKa,  ra  Be  ireXiKa  koX  ttoctjtcko),^  All  external 
goods  are  efficient  goods  (TroirjTCKa).  All  kinds  of  actions 
done  according  to  virtue  and  the  accompanying  feelings  of  sat- 
isfaction are  final  goods.  Virtues  are  both  efficient  and  final ; 
for  inasmuch  as  they  produce  perfect  happiness  (evBatfiovla), 
they  are  efficient,  and  inasmuch  as  they  complete  it  by  being 
themselves  part  of  it,  are  final.2 

And  now,  we  may  go  on  and  say :  All  virtues  and  excel- 
lences are  both  means  and  ends  in  themselves,  but  not  all  of 
them  are  so  in  the  same  degree.  Not  all  the  members  or  or- 
gans of  a  living  body  are  equally  necessary,  just  as  some 
scenes  in  a  drama  more  nearly  express  the  leading  thought 
or  idea  of  the  play  than  others.  Similarly,  some  functions  in 
moral  life  occupy  a  more  central,  others  a  more  peripheral, 
position ;  some  are  secondary  means,  while  others  have  their 
purpose  in  themselves. 

Aristotle  recognized  this  truth.  The  central  purpose  of  a 
creature  is  the  exercise  of  its  specific  nature  or  power.  Now, 
man's  peculiar  characteristic  is  the  exercise  of  reason.  Hence, 
the  function  of  scientific  knowledge,  that  is,  philosophy,  con- 
stitutes the  central  purpose  of  human  life.  The  exercise  of 
the  ethical  virtues,  all  of  which  are  based  on  practical  reason, 
comes  next ;  further  down  in  the  scale  comes  the  exercise  of 
the  economic  and  finally  of  the  animal  functions ;  they  are 

1  [Ot  goods  some  are  final,  some  are  efficient,  and  some  are  both  final  and 
efficient.] 

2  [Diogenes  Laertius,  VII.,  57.  Engl,  translation  by  C.  D.  Yonffe  pp. 
294  f.  — Tr.] 


278 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


m 


the  necessary  pre-conditions  or  natural  foundations  of  real 
human  life.  The  naturalistic  view  is  confirmed  by  the  direct 
testimony  of  feeling :  man  finds  the  greatest  satisfaction  or 
evBacfjLovla  in  a  life  consisting  of  the  exercise  of  the  theoretical 

and  practical  reason. 

The  evolutionistic  theory,  with  its  principle  that  the  later 
form  is  at  the  same  time  the  higher  one,  suggests  a  similar 
arrangement.     In   the  lowest  stages  of  animal  life,  action 
consists  solely  in  the  search  for  food  and  the  endeavor  to  es- 
cape unfavorable  external  conditions.     Gradually  the  repro- 
ductive functions,  with  the  care  of  offspring  in  rudimentary 
form,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  intelligence,  at  first  in  the  form 
of  sense-perception,  are  added.     The  foundations  of  social  and 
intellectual  life  are  now  laid.     They  reach  their  highest  de- 
velopment in  man.     Their  evolution  forms  the  chief  content 
of  the  only  part  of  the  history  of  progress  of  which  we  have 
some  direct  knowledge,  —  namely,  through  historical  recollec- 
tion, —  that  is,  the  history  of  humanity.     Now,  what  has  taken 
place  in  the  historical  life  of  humanity,  what  is  its  essential 
content  ?    We  have  reached  a  more  comprehensive  and  deeper 
knowledge  of  reality,  and  we  have  developed  a  more  compre- 
hensive and  more   complicated   social   organization.     Corre- 
sponding to  this  growth  of  function  we  necessarily  have  a 
perfection   of   powers:    reason,  the   function   by   which   the 
knowledge  of  things  is  attained  and  the  will  is  guided  in  the 
kingdom  of  ends,  and  social  virtues,  the  functions  upon  which 
the   family,   the   state,   and    society   depend,   constitute   the 
essence  of  man  as  a  historical  being. 

That  human  life  will  therefore  be  the  most  valuable  which 
succeeds  best  in  developing  the  highest  powers  of  man  and  in 
subordinating  the  lower  functions  to  the  higher.  A  life,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  which  the  vegetative  and  animal  functions, 
sensuous  desires  and  blind  passions,  have  control,  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  lower  or  abnormal  form.  A  perfect  human  life 
is  a  life  in  which  the  mi7id  attains  to  free  and  full  growth,  and 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


279 


in  which  the  spiritual  forces  reach  their  highest  perfection  in 
thought,  imagination,  and  action.  This  is,  of  course,  possible 
only  in  human-historical  surroundings.  Hence,  we  must  in- 
clude among  the  essential  faculties  of  life  the  social  virtues, 
whose  purpose  it  is  to  create  peaceful  and  mutually  beneficial 
relations  between  the  agent  and  his  immediate  and  remote 
human  environment.  Wisdom  and  kindness,  so  says  common- 
sense,  are  the  two  sides  of  perfection.  Yet  we  must  guard 
against  a  false  spiritualization.  The  sensuous  and  even  the 
animal  side  have  their  rights.  The  pleasures  of  perception 
and  play  which  throw  such  a  glamour  around  childhood,  also 
belong  to  life  ;  nay,  we  shall  not  exclude  the  pleasures  of 
eating  and  drinking  and  kindred  functions  from  the  perfect 
life  ;  only  they  must  not  presume  to  rule  it. 

We  may  now  extend  this  conception  of  means  and  ends  be- 
yond the  limits  of  individual  life.  A  perfect  human  life  is  an 
end  in  itself.  But  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  part,  and  hence,  a 
means  of  a  larger  whole,  a  national  life,  a  sphere  of  civiliza- 
tion. In  his  Republic,  Plato  conceives  the  state  as  a  human 
being  on  a  larger  scale,  and  discovers  in  it  the  same  general 
functions  and  powers.  The  individual  is  related  to  the  com- 
munity as  means  to  end,  as  a  means,  however,  which  is,  at 
the  same  time,  a  part  of  the  end,  for  the  whole  merely  exists 
in  the  totality  of  individuals.  We  now  obtain  a  new  standard 
of  value  for  the  individual :  the  greater  and  higher  the  services 
which  he  renders  to  the  whole,  the  more  he  contributes  to  tlie 
mental-historical  life  of  his  people  by  providing  it  with  good 
institutions,  by  honoring  it  with  noble  deeds,  by  enriching  it 
with  true  and  good  thoughts,  by  adorning  it  with  beautiful  and 
elevating  works  and  symbols,  the  greater  is  his  value  and  the 
more  highly  will  lie  be  appreciated  by  history.  Moral  worth 
in  the  narrower  sense  does  not  depend  upon  this  ;  it  is  deter- 
mined by  the  faithfulness  and  devotion  with  which  the  indi- 
vidual fulfils  his  mission,  be  it  great  or  small.  Here  the  good 
will  is  the  standard  of  measurement,  and  this  even  the  poor 


N  (■ 


280 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


in  spirit  may  fully  possess.  Here,  again,  we  must  guard 
against  a  false  spiritualization.  We  are  not  to  understand 
that  the  value  of  a  nation  is  to  be  judged  solely  by  what  it 
achieves  in  science  and  philosophy  or  in  art  and  poetry.  Our 
times  are  perhaps  inclined  to  overestimate  these  things.  A 
nation  likewise  needs  its  warriors  and  statesmen  to  defend  it 
and  to  advance  its  external  interests,  its  merchants  and  sailors 
to  open  up  new  countries  and  oceans  to  commerce  and  to  create 
fruitful  relations  with  foreign  nations,  its  inventors  and  arti- 
sans to  discover  and  practise  their  countless  arts,  its  peasants 
and  laborers  to  till  the  fields  and  to  feed  the  steeds,  and  its 
mothers  to  rear  its  children  in  love  and  faith,  and  the  children 
themselves  who  play  about  the  streets.  All  these  belong  to 
the  nation ;  they  are  not  merely  the  external  basis  without 
which  there  could  be  no  spiritual  life,  but  form  a  part  of  its 
life.  Indeed,  this  perfect  spiritual  life  is  produced  by  them  as 
well  as  for  them.  The  creative  leaders  and  the  receptive 
masses  exist  for  each  other. 

We  may,  finally,  also  regard  the  nations  themselves  as 
members  of  a  higher  unity.  Mankind,  the  concrete  expres- 
sion of  the  idea  of  humanity  in  the  infinite  variety  of  the 
peculiar  and  beautiful  forms  of  which  the  latter  is  capable, 
is  the  ultimate  goal  in  our  empirical  conception  of  the  highest 
good.  Perfect  humanity,  or,  in  Christian  phraseology,  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  is  the  highest  good  and  the  final 
end  to  which  all  nations  and  all  historical  products  are 
related  as  means,  not  as  indifferent  means,  it  is  true,  but  as 
organs  or  parts  of  the  end.  This  will  also  furnish  us  with 
the  highest  criterion  for  judging  the  nations  and  different 
stages  of  civilization :  their  value  is  measured  by  the  degree 
in  which  they  serve  to  realize  and  express  the  idea  of  humanity. 
Although  no  nation  and  no  stage  of  civilization  is  absolutely 
worthless,  they  nevertheless  differ  in  value  and  importance 
according  as  the  development  of  their  social-political,  mental- 
moral,  artistic  and  religious  life  approximates  this  idea. 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


281 


It  is  not  hard  to  see,  of  course,  that  we  have  now  reached 
a  concept  which  we  cannot  realize.  We  cannot  give  a  con- 
crete exposition  of  the  idea  of  humanity  ;  all  we  can  do  is  to 
outline  it  by  means  of  the  general  concepts  of  a  historical- 
mental  life.  All  anthropological  and  historical  investigations 
furnish  us  with  materials,  but  we  cannot  construct  the  idea : 
we  cannot  form  an  idea  of  the  contents  of  the  humanity-life 
in  which  the  contents  of  the  lives  of  all  races  and  peoples, 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  Egyptians  and  Babylonians, 
Chinese  and  Japanese,  of  the  countless  Negro  and  Indian 
tribes,  shall  be  included  as  teleologically  necessary  means  of 
realizing  the  idea.  The  divine  poem,  as  the  history  of 
humanity  has  been  called,  surpasses  our  comprehension; 
we  observe  isolated  fragments  and  compare  them,  but  we 
cannot  grasp  the  unity  of  the  poem,  the  idea  of  the  whole, 
which  will  explain  the  necessity  of  the  members  or  frag- 
ments. The  so-called  philosophy  of  history  has  attempted 
to  gather  the  fragments  into  a  whole,  and  to  interpret  them 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  whole.  It  has,  however,  not 
succeeded  in  doing  more  than  making  a  schematic  arrange- 
ment of  them ;  taking  the  narrow  circle  of  civilization  em- 
bracing antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  beginnings 
of  modern  times,  it  has  at  most  been  able  to  point  out  a 
historical  connection  here  and  there  which  may,  to  a  certain 
extent,  be  regarded  as  teleologically  necessary.  And  there 
is  evidently  little  hope  that  this  science  will  ever  attain  to 
greater  perfection  in  the  future.  Even  the  history  of  the 
past  is  highly  fragmentary  ;  literature,  which  Goethe  once 
called  the  fragment  of  fragments,  is  apparently  the  best 
preserved  portion  of  historical  tradition.  But  even  if  we  had 
a  clear  and  complete  survey  of  the  entire  past  history  of  the 
human  race,  we  should  probably  possess  but  a  very  insignifi- 
cant fragment  of  the  whole  :  the  future  would  be  lacking. 
Perhaps  the  history  of  humanity  is  in  its  first  beginnings ; 
perhaps  the  historical  life  of  particular  nations  and  civiliza- 


282 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


tions  is  but  a  prelude  to  the  real  historical  life  of  a  united 
humanity,  for  which  the  modern  era  is  preparing,  and  which 
in  our  age,  with  its  enormously  developed  means  of  com- 
munication, seems  so  close  at  hand.  Perhaps  the  centralized 
world-market  and  the  universal  postal  system  are  the  fore- 
runners of  the  coming  unification  of  the  mental-historical 
life  of  humanity.  Under  these  circumstances,  how  can  we 
presume  to  understand  the  plan  of  universal  history  which 
shall  enable  us  to  assign  to  each  particular  element  of  his- 
torical life  its  place  within  the  whole,  as  we  understand  the 
particular  parts  and  verses  of  a  poem,  which  are  essential 
means  of  realizing  the  idea  of  the  whole  ? 

It  is  still  more  difficult  to  give  a  concrete  conception  of 
the  ideal  when  we  insert  the  life  of  humanity  into  another 
greater  and  more  comprehensive  reality,  and  characterize  it 
as  a  part  of  a  total  life  of  the  All-Real,  Here  we  are  dealing 
entirely  with  schematic  concepts  which  absolutely  transcend 
the  imagination.  The  inconceivable  and  ineffable  we  can 
express  only  symbolically ;  in  so  far  as  we  desire  to  char- 
acterize the  All-Real  as  the  highest  good  we  call  it  dod. 
And  its  manifestation  in  a  world  of  mental-historical  life, 
which  is  embraced  in  the  unity  of  its  spiritual  essence,  we 
call  the  kingdom  of  God.  These  concepts  do  not,  like  the 
concepts  of  science,  comprehend  reality  as  it  is  given  to  us 
in  perception.  Nay,  they  do  not  really  belong  to  the  domain 
of  knowledge ;  they  merely  indicate  the  direction  in  which  we, 
as  feeling  and  willing  beings,  are  moving  when  we  attempt  to 
complete  our  conception  of  reality.  They  express  our  belief 
that  all  reality  tends  to  some  highest  end.  If  the  idea  of  a 
divine  plan  in  the  history  of  humanity  already  transcends  our 
comprehension,  how  much  more  must  this  be  the  case  with 
the  divine  world-plan!  All  attempts  to  define  it  theoreti- 
cally result  either  in  the  trite  enumeration  of  a  few  empiri- 
cal facts  and  the  reversal  of  the  causal  order,  as  in  the 
teleology  of  the  last  century,  or  in  the  barren  logical  con- 


THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 


283 


struction  of  general  concepts,  as  in  Hegel's  philosophy. 
The  understanding  can  never  grasp  the  contents  of  the 
highest  good.  The  symbols  of  religion  and  art  endeavor 
to  render  it  accessible  to  the  feelings;  by  means  of  the 
finite  and  comprehensible,  they  suggest  the  infinite  and 
incomprehensible. 

'  Im  Innern  ist  ein  Universum  auch ; 

Daher  der  Vdlker  lobliclier  Gebrauch, 
Dass  jeglicher  das  Beste,  was  er  kennt, 
Er  Gott,  ja  seinen  Gott  benennt, 
Ibm  Himmel  und  Erden  iibergiebt, 
Ihn  fiirchtet  und  wombglich  liebt. 

8.  G.  von  Gizycki  has  entered  a  protest  against  the  views 
expressed  in  this  chapter,  in  the  name  of  the  hedonistic 
theory.!  I  confess  that  his  remarks  have  not  changed  my 
opinion ;  nor  do  I  dare  to  hope  that  my  reply  will  induce  any 
one  to  give  up  his  theory.  There  is  something  like  habit 
even  in  our  thinking ;  whoever  has  become  accustomed  to 
look  at  things  in  a  certain  way  will  regard  different  concep- 
tions as  a  mechanic  regards  a  tool  to  which  he  is  not  used, 
and  will  reject  them  as  unsatisfactory.  I  am,  of  course,  like 
other  people  in  this  respect.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  think 
that  the  thing  of  absolute  worth  is  not  the  objective  content 
of  life,  but  the  feeling  of  satisfaction  with  which  it  is  expe- 
rienced, and  that  the  former  is  merely  an  indifferent  means 
to  the  latter.  The  value  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  the  thing 
itself  and  not  in  the  recognition  of  the  value  by  the  feeling 
of  satisfaction.  By  the  objective  content  of  life  I  do  not 
at  all  mean  the  vegetative  organic  processes  constituting 
bodily  life,  as  another  somewhat  too  hasty  critic  has  as- 
sumed. I  mean  by  it,  above  all,  the  mental  life,  which  ap- 
pears in  human  beings  as  rational  thinking  and  rational 
willing  and  acting,  plus  the  feelings  which  are  attached  to  all 

1  In  an  elaborate  review  of  this  book  in  the  Sunday  supplement  of  theVossische 
Zeitung,  February,  1889. 


284 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


conscious  processes.  I  deny  that  this  feeling  element  is  the 
thing  of  absolute  worth;  it  belongs  to  the  phenomena  of 
inner  life,  but  not  as  their  absolute  end. 

However,  1  do  not  desire  to  repeat  what  has  already  been 
said  ;  I  simply  wish  to  say  a  word  on  one  point.  Gizycki  con- 
tends that  my  system  of  ethics  has  no  criterion  for  measuring 
the  worth  of  acts  and  qualities,  since  it  rejects  the  only  pos- 
sible one :  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  happiness.  Hence,  he 
declares,  it  has  no  right  to  speak  as  it  does  of  higher  and 
lower  powers  and  actions. 

I  believe,  however,  that  it  possesses  such  a  standard :  the 
standard  is  what  has  been  called  the  normal  type,  or  the  idea, 
of  human  life.  To  be  sure,  this  type  cannot  be  defined  as 
accurately  as  a  mathematical  concept,  and  yet  it  exists  and 
has  its  function.  Our  judgment  of  the  symmetry  and  beauty 
of  the  bodily  form  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  we  uncon- 
sciously compare  it  with  a  normal  type.  Similarly,  our  judg- 
ment of  the  mental-moral  form  rests  upon  comparison  with 
a  normal  type  of  the  inner  man.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
conscience,  which  pronounces  upon  one's  own  life ;  its  judg- 
ments are  based  upon  the  comparison  of  actual  life  with  an 
ideal.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  we  never  measure  the  value  of  a 
life,  be  it  an  individual  or  a  social  life,  by  employing  a  method 
which  might  be  designated  as  the  method  of  computing  the 
balance  of  pleasure.  The  same  fact  may  be  observed  in 
practical  affairs.  In  choosing  his  remedies,  the  physician 
does  not  first  consider  the  balance  of  pleasure,  but  inquires 
into  their  effect  upon  the  functions  of  life.  What,  he  asks, 
is  the  effect  of  bodily  exercise,  of  baths,  opiates,  etc.,  upon 
the  functions  of  life  and  upon  the  organs  ?  Nor  does  the 
educator  ask  whether  such  and  such  methods  of  discipline 
or  instruction  will  give  the  pupil  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  pleasure,  but  whether  they  will  develop  his  intellectual  and 
moral  capacities.  The  politician  does  the  same.  A  measure 
is  discussed  in  a  legislative  gathering;  one  party  favors  it; 


THE   HIGHEST   GOOD 


285 


the  other  opposes  it ;  neither  party  bases  its  conclusions  upon 
a  computation  of  pleasures,  but  upon  the  supposed  favorable 
or  unfavorable  effects  of  the  measure  upon  the  development 
of  the  people  along  the  line  of  their  ideal. 

Is  this  a  defect  ?  Is  such  comparison  with  a  normal  type  a 
crude  and  merely  provisional  method,  and  must  philosophy 
substitute  for  it  the  more  perfect  method  of  the  balance  of 
pleasures  ? 

It  appears  to  me  that  if  this  is  so,  then  the  problem  of  phi- 
losophy is  a  rather  hopeless  one.  Our  means  of  finding  such  a 
balance  of  pleasure  are,  in  my  opinion,  exceedingly  poor,  and 
I  do  not  look  for  any  great  improvement  along  these  lines  in 
the  future.  Bentham's  scheme  of  measuring  the  quantum  of 
pleasure  is  still  waiting  for  some  one  to  apply  it,  and  will,  I 
believe,  have  long  to  wait  and  in  vain. 

What  ethics  actually  and  universally  does  is  this  :  it  at- 
tempts to  analyze  and  describe  the  normal  type  of  which  we 
have  spoken.  The  doctrine  of  virtues,  the  fundamental  part  of 
ethics,  gives  such  an  analysis,  and  the  doctrine  of  duties  differs 
from  it  only  in  form ;  it  gives  us  a  general  description  of 
the  function  of  the  virtuous  character.  Just  as  dietetics 
describes  the  normal  functions  of  the  body,  and  points  out 
their  importance  for  life,  so  moral  philosophy  describes  the 
normal  functions  of  man  as  a  rational,  volitional  being,  and 
shows  their  value  for  individual  and  collective  life,  calling  at- 
tention, at  the  same  time,  to  disturbances  and  deviations,  and 
indicating  how  they  may  be  avoided  and  counteracted.  It  like- 
wise distinguishes  between  the  more  and  the  less  important 
phases  of  life,  between  the  controlling  and  the  subordinate 
functions.  Dietetics  is  satisfied,  without  entering  upon  a 
computation  of  pleasures,  that  the  spinal  column  is  a  more 
important  part  of  the  body  than  a  finger  or  a  tooth,  that  the 
action  of  the  heart  has  a  greater  significance  for  life  than  the 
tear  gland,  that  the  proper  care  of  the  functions  of  nutrition 
is  more  important  than  the  cut  of  one's  hair.     Similarly, 


286 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


ethics,  considering  the  conditions  and  relations  of  human  his- 
torical life,  is  convinced,  without  calculations  of  this  kind,  that 
self-control  and  justice  are  more  important  than  polite  man- 
ners, that  the  functions  of  the  teacher  and  judge  are  worth 
more  to  a  people  than  those  of  an  opera  singer  or  acrobat. 

In  his  Ethics  Gizycki  modifies  the  hedonistic  theory  as  fol- 
lows :  The  highest  subjective  goal  of  life,  he  says,  is  the  sat- 
isfaction produced  by  the  consciousness  of  having  done  the 
right,  or  the  feeling  of  a  good  conscience.  Doring  agrees  with 
him  when,  in  his  Gilterlehre^  he  defines  the  highest  good  as  the 
proper  regard  for  self,  or  the  satisfaction  of  the  desire  for  indi- 
vidual worth.  —  We  see  thus  that  the  difference  between  the 
various  conceptions  of  morality  may  be  practically  insignificant 
or  may  entirely  vanish.  The  question  is  a  purely  theoretical 
one.  But  for  this  very  reason  it  seems  proper  to  me  to  say : 
Life  itself  and  its  healthful,  virtuous,  and  beautiful  activity  is 
the  absolutely  desirable  and  valuable  thing,  not  the  isolated 
feeling-reflex  accompanying  it.  Feelings,  of  course,  exist 
and  belong  to  life,  but  not  as  the  absolute  good ;  they  are  not 
the  final  motives  of  the  agent's  will,  nor  the  truly  valuable  ele- 
ments in  the  judgment  of  the  spectator. 

The  difference  between  Gizycki's  conception  and  my  own 
has,  as  he  himself  assumes,  its  ultimate  root  in  psychology. 
He  attributes  my  error  to  a  false  psychology,  and  corrects  it 
by  referring  me  to  Bain  and  others.  Well,  I  confess,  despite 
all  my  respect  for  the  English  thinkers,  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  analytical  psychology  has  said  or  will  say  the  last  word  on 
this  subject.  A  mere  analysis  of  conscious  processes —  which, 
moreover,  fails  to  confirm  the  hedonistic  view  —  does  not 
go  to  the  root  of  the  discussion.  It  must  be  supplemented  by 
biological  reflections,  and  these  do  not  show  us  that  the  will 
is  primarily  determined  by  pleasures  and  pains,  and  is  their 
product,  as  it  were,  but  favor  the  view  advocated  by  Schopen- 
hauer :  that  a  particularly  determined  will,  a  specific  will 
(^ein  Wesenwille)^  to  use  Tonnies's  term,  is  the  fundamen- 
tal fact  of  all  psychical  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

PESSIMISM  1 

1.  Before  taking  up  the  second  fundamental  concept  of 
ethics,  the  concept  of  duty,  I  should  like  to  consider  a  theory 
which  occupies  an  important  place  in  the  thoughts  and  delib- 
erations of  the  present:  pessimism.  Pessimism  opposes  the 
view  advanced  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  that  life  itself,  or  the 
normal  exercise  of  all  vital  functions,  is  the  thing  of  absolute 
worth,  and  asserts :  Life  has  no  value ;  or,  if  it  contains  valu- 
able elements,  their  sum  is  so  far  exceeded  by  the  worthless 
ones  that  the  total  value  falls  below  zero,  and  hence,  it  is 
better  not  to  live  than  to  live. 

The  Italian  poet  Leopardi  pathetically  expresses  this  mood 
in  the  lines  "  To  Myself ^^     Let  me  quote  them : 

"  Rest  forever  heart ;  enough 
Hast  thou  throbbed.     Nothing  is  worth 
Thy  agitations,  nor  of  sighs  is  worthy 
The  earth.     Bitterness  and  vexation 
Is  life,  and  never  aught  besides,  and  mire  the  world. 
Quiet  thyself  henceforth.     Despair 
For  the  last  time.     To  our  race  fate 
Has  given  but  death.     Henceforth  despise 
Thyself,  nature,  the  foul 

Power  which,  hidden,  rules  to  the  common  bane, 
And  the  infinite  vanity  of  the  whole."  ^ 


^  [Sully,  Pessimism,  A  FTi'sfori/  and  a  Criticism;  Som raer,  Z)«r  Pessimismus 
und  die  Sittenlehre  ;  Pliimacher,  Der  Pessimismus  in  Vergangenheit  und  Gegenwart. 
(History  and  Criticism.)  — Tr.] 

2  f I  have  taken  this  translation  from  Sully's  Pessimism,  p.  27.  —  Tr.] 


288 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


In  SO  far  as  these  lines  represent  the  real  feelings  of  the 
poet,  they  are,  of  course,  incontrovertible,  —  just  as  incon- 
trovertible as  the  lines  of  Matthew  Arnold; 

**  Is  it  so  small  a  thing 
To  have  enjoyed  the  sun, 
To  have  lived  light  in  the  Spring, 
To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done ; 
To  have  advanced  true  friends,  and  beat  down  baffling  foes  ?  "  » 

Feelings  are  not  true  or  false ;  they  are  facts  which  can  be 
analyzed  and  explained,  which  may  be  considered  praise- 
worthy or  detestable,  but  not  refuted. 

The  case  is  different  where  pessimism  aims  to  be  a  phil- 
osophical theory.  Schopenhauer  does  not  merely  desire  to 
express  the  feeling  that  he  finds  nothing  in  life,  but  he  tries 
to  prove  that  there  is  nothing  in  it,  and  that  whoever  finds 
anything  in  it  deceives  himself.  He  gives  reasons,  and 
reasons,  unlike  feelings,  can  be  examined,  and  may,  if  false, 
be  refuted.  The  argument  will  not  necessarily  change  the  per- 
sonal mood  of  the  pessimist,  but  it  will  destroy  the  validity  of 
his  theory.  Such  an  examination  I  propose  to  place  before 
the  reader.  Unless  I  mistake  its  value,  it  will  show  that 
philosophical  pessimism  is  not  a  proved  theory,  whose  propo- 
sitions can  lay  claim  to  universal  validity,  but  the  expression 
of  individual  feelings,  and  as  such  can  be  merely  subjectively 
true.^ 

We  may  divide  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  prove 
pessimism  into  two  classes  :  the  sensualistic-hedonistic  and  the 
moralistic.  By  the  former  I  mean  the  argument  which  en- 
deavors to  show  that  life  yields  more  pain  than  pleasure, 
and  concludes  from  this  that  it  is  worth  less  than  nothing. 

^  Poems,  IT.,  32 :  Empedocles  on  Etna. 

^  {For  philosophical  pessimism  see :  Schopenhauer,  Tlie  World  as  Will  and 
Idea,  vol.  I.,  Book  IV. ;  vol.  II.,  Appendix  to  Book  IV. ;  Parerga,  chaps.  XL, 
XIT.,  XIV. ;  Mainlander,  Die  Phihsophie  der  ErlSsung ;  Hartmann,  Die  Philo- 
sophie  des  Unhewussten  ;  Zur  Geschichte  und  Begrundung  des  Pessimismus,  etc. — 
Tb.] 


PESSIMISM 


289 


The  latter  adds  that  life,  considered  objectively  and  morally, 
has  no  value,  and  that  it  is  therefore  not  only  unhappy,  but 
deserves  to  be  unhappy.  I  also  mention  a  third  form  :  the 
proof  from  the  philosophy  of  history^  which  tries  to  show  that 
as  life  develops,  especially  with  the  progress  of  civilization, 
pain  and  immorality  increase. 

2.  The  hedonistic  argument  contends  that  human  life  yields 
more  and  greater  pains  than  pleasures.  It  is  evident  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  that  such  an  assertion  can  be 
proved  only  by  statistics.  A  phrase  frequently  used  by  the 
most  recent  pessimistic  writers  would  seem  to  imply  that 
such  an  argument  can  really  be  made;  they  speak  of  a 
balance  of  pleasure^  which  is  against  the  value  of  life.  The 
term  is  borrowed  from  commercial  language.  The  merchant 
adds  up  the  debit  and  credit  accounts  of  his  ledger,  and 
strikes  the  balance.  It  would  appear  from  the  phrase  that 
the  pessimistic  philosopher  employs  a  similar  method,  that  he 
keeps  books,  as  it  were,  entering  on  opposite  sides,  under  the 
headings,  pleasure  and  pain^  the  respective  amounts  yielded 
by  life ;  that  some  day  he  posts  his  books,  and  finds  that  the 
total  of  the  pain-columns  exceeds  the  total  of  the  pleasure- 
columns. 

I  do  not  know  whether  such  an  attempt  has  ever  been 
made ;  I  have  discovered  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the  writings 
of  the  philosophical  pessimists  with  which  I  happen  to  be 
acquainted.  And  yet  it  seems  to  me  no  method  could  furnish 
80  convincing  a  proof  that  the  thing  is  possible  as  the 
attempt  to  post  the  items  even  of  a  single  day  of  a  human 
life.  Imagine  the  average  day  of  an  average  human  life 
treated  according  to  such  a  scheme  !  We  might  have  an 
account  like  the  following :  A.  Receipts  in  Pleasure  :  1. 
Slept  well  —  equal  so  many  units;  2.  Enjoyed  my  break- 
fast —  ;  3.  Read  a  chapter  from  a  good  book  — ;  4.  Received 
a  letter  from  a  friend  — ;  etc.  B.  Pain  :  1.  Read  a  disagree- 
able  story  in  the   paper  — ;  2.   Disturbed   by  a   neighbor's 

19 


290 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


PESSIMISM 


291 


piano  — ;  3.  Received  a  tiresome  visit  — ;  4.  Ate  burnt  soup 
—  •  etc.  —  The  philosopher  is  requested  to  insert  the  amounts 
in  the  proper  places. 

But  that  is  an  absurd  and  childish  demand,  you  say !  I 
certainly  agree  with  you  that  it  would  be  an  absurd  under- 
taking. But  the  demand  itself  does  not  seem  to  be  absurd. 
If  it  is  wholly  impossible  to  make  a  statistical  estimate 
of  the  pleasure  and  pain  quanta,  how  can  the  assertion  be 
proved  that  the  pains  exceed  the  pleasures  ?  If  it  is  impos- 
sible to  fix  a  definite  value  for  the  separate  items,  how  can  the 
value  of  the  totals  be  compared  ?  If  we  are  utterly  unable  to 
handle  the  simplest  cases,  if  we  cannot  even  say  whether  the 
pleasure  yielded  by  a  good  breakfast  is  greater  or  less  than 
the  pain  occasioned  by  burned  soup,  how  can  we  make  even  the 
faintest  conjecture  in  more  difficult  cases  ?  How  can  we,  if 
we  are  unable  to  compute  the  results  of  a  single  day,  dare  to 
assert  anything  concerning  the  results  of  an  entire  life,  and 
then  not  of  a  single  individual  life,  mind  you,  but  of  all  human 

lives  ? 

In  his  novel,  Four  Germans^  Melchior  Meyer  gives  the  his- 
tory of  two  young  men  who  grow  up  together  under  the  same 
conditions,  with  the  same  prospects  and  demands  on  life. 
They  study  together,  they  are  friends,  and  hold  essentially 
the  same  views.  At  the  end  of  their  college  days,  the  differ- 
ences in  their  natures  begin  to  manifest  themselves.  The 
one  enters  the  government-service  ;  he  becomes  an  affable 
and  capable  official,  and  soon  discards  such  notions  as  are 
considered  objectionable  in  high  circles.  He  begins  to  rise 
more  rapidly ;  he  enters  the  Cabinet,  becomes  the  son-in-law 
of  the  Prime  Minister,  and  finally  Prime  Minister  himself. 
His  friend,  who  has  a  more  reflective  nature,  follows  a  uni- 
versity career ;  he  becomes  a  privat-docent  and  a  writer. 
Caring  only  for  his  own  convictions,  he  refuses  to  be  gov- 
erned by  the  prevailing  opinions.  Before  knowing  it,  he 
becomes    unpopular,  the  orthodox  thinkers  begin   to  shake 


their  heads.  His  influence  wanes,  his  books  are  not  read,  as 
is  natural,  for  he  has  written  them  for  himself.  At  the  age 
of  thirty  and  thirty-five,  he  is  still  living  in  destitute  circum- 
stances. His  father  grows  impatient,  his  mother  grieves  ; 
then  comes  the  year  1848,  and  places  both  young  men  in 
new  circumstances,  —  which  we  need  not  mind  now.  What 
shall  we  say  of  the  balance  of  pleasure  in  these  two  lives  up 
to  this  point  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  these  are  particularly 
difficult  cases ;  and  yet  who  would  dare  to  decide  which  life 
had  yielded  the  most  happiness  ?  Who  can  measure  the  ratio, 
in  the  life  of  the  former,  between  the  pleasures  following  the 
satisfaction  of  ambition  and  the  pain  inseparable  from  the 
fears  and  hopes  of  preferment,  the  disappointment  accom- 
panying tlie  attainment  of  vain  goods ;  and  who  can  compute 
the  relation,  in  the  other  life,  between  the  quiet  joys  of  the 
thinker  and  the  pains  caused  by  neglect  and  outward 
failure  ? 

The  pessimists,  therefore,  have  never  even  attempted  to 
prove  their  assertions,  as  demanded  by  the  nature  of  the  case. 
They  offer  us  general  phrases  instead.  Listen  to  some  of 
them.  First  we  are  told  the  old  story  that  pleasure  is  in  the 
last  analysis  nothing  hut  freedom  from  pain  ;  that  it  invariably 
arises  only  when  a  desire  is  satisfied,  when  a  disease  is  cured 
or  a  fear  removed.  Pleasure,  so  it  is  held,  is  therefore  nega- 
tive in  its  character,  while  pain  alone  is  positive;  there 
are  in  reality  no  figures  in  the  pleasure-column  of  our  imagi- 
nary ledger ;  one  hour  differs  from  another  merely  in  the 
amount  of  pain  suffered.  —  Now  if  this  were  really  true,  if 
we  really  regarded  as  pleasure  what  is  only  freedom  from 
pain,  would  that  in  the  least  alter  the  fact  that  pleasure  and 
pain  are  positive  feelings  ?  And  is  not  the  feeling,  after  all, 
the  final  and  absolute  judge ;  would  it  not  be  absurd  to  claim 
that  pleasure  is  nothing  but  freedom  from  pain  ?  All  that 
we  could  say  would  be  that  it  never  arises  except  when 
preceded   by   a    painful    desire.      This   statement,  however, 


292 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


I 


would  be  obviously  false.  Is  appetite  pain?  Is  it  not 
rather  an  anticipation  of  pleasure,  and  is  it  not  felt  as  such 
by  the  healthy  man  ?  With  eager  eyes  the  child  watches  his 
mother  baking  cakes;  does  he  experience  pain,  and  is  this 
silenced  only  after  he  has  eaten  the  cake  ?  Does  he,  after 
waking  from  a  healthy  sleep,  soon  experience  painful  tedium, 
and  does  he  get  rid  of  the  feeling  only  after  it  has  forced  him 
to  play  ?  No  one  can  believe  such  a  thing  unless  he  ignores 
the  facts  and  makes  up  his  mind  to  see  nothing  but  the  pro- 
positions of  his  system.  —  Besides,  the  falsity  of  the  view 
may  be  shown  in  another  way.  If  pleasure  were  freedom 
from  the  pain  of  desire,  it  would  have  to  be  the  greater,  the 
greater  the  desire  has  been.  That  is  by  no  means  always  the 
case.  On  the  contrary,  the  individuals  who  have  the  strongest 
desires  experience  the  least  pleasure  after  realizing  them. 
The  people  who  wait  most  patiently  enjoy  the  purest  and 
intensest  pleasures,  when  they  obtain  what  they  neither  asked 
for  nor  expected.  We  see  this  in  children;  I  believe  it 
always  happens  that  the  greater  the  desire,  the  less  pleasure 
its  satisfaction  yields. 

Schopenhauer  proves  pessimism  by  reference  to  the  nature 
of  the  will^  which  per  se  is  unintelligent,  aimless  striving. 
It  is  not  originally  moved  by  the  idea  of  an  end,  but  appears 
as  a  blind  will-to-live.  Hence,  he  says,  there  can  be  no  state, 
no  good,  which  can  give  the  will  definite  satisfaction.  This 
determines  the  nature  of  the  feelings :  pain  and  misery,  dis- 
appointment and  tedium  are  the  inevitable  result.  The  pain 
which  is  caused  by  need  urges  the  will  to  action;  in  case 
it  does  not  realize  its  end,  the  pain  becomes  torture.  If  it 
realizes  its  end,  the  relief  is  momentarily  felt  as  pleasure. 
But  soon  this  disappears;  possession,  which  from  a  dis- 
tance promised  permanent  satisfaction,  soon  fails  to  arouse 
feelings  of  pleasure ;  hence  the  end  of  all  pleasure  is  disap- 
pointment. In  case  the  will  endeavors  to  put  an  end  to  this 
restless  striving,  tedium  soon  goads  it  into  preferring  misery 


PESSIMISM 


293 


and  torture  to  a  state  of  rest.  These  are  the  feelings  between 
which  the  will  constantly  oscillates.  We  might,  therefore, 
compare  life  to  a  foot-path  running  between  two  thorny 
hedges,  a  path  so  narrow  that  when  the  wanderer  attempts 
to  avoid  one  of  the  hedges,  he   is  invariably  torn  by  the 

other. 

Impartial  judges  will  regard  this  view  as  extremely  one- 
sided. Perhaps  no  life  is  absolutely  free  from  suffering  and 
tedium,  but  many  an  existence  will,  for  some  days,  be  almost 
entirely  without  them.  The  path  between  the  hedges  is  not  so 
narrow  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  any  one  but  an  unusually 
awkward  man  to  pursue  it  without  serious  injury.  A  healthy 
child,  reared  in  simple,  healthy  surroundings,  will  not  know 
very  much  about  distress  and  tedium  when  leaving  the  parental 
home.  And  if  the  conditions  of  life  continue  half-way  favor- 
able, he  may  not  experience  them  to  any  great  extent  for 
many  years  to  come.  The  peasant  does  not  wait  for  want  to 
urge  him  to  his  work.  In  the  daytime  he  rejoices  at  what 
he  has  accomplished,  and  at  night  he  enjoys  his  rest.  It 
would  be  a  vain  undertaking  to  make  him  believe  that  the 
former  is  pain  and  the  latter  tedium.  And  so  work-days  and 
holidays,  summer  and  winter  may  come  and  go,  year  in  and 
year  out,  without  bringing  great  troubles  and  without  leaving 
much  opportunity  for  tedium.  Of  course,  some  sorrows  will 
come,  but  we  also  find  that  sorrows  turn  into  blessings. 
Hence,  we  might  perhaps  quote,  at  the  end  of  such  a  life, 
the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  in  a  slightly  modified  form :  The 
days  of  our  years  are  threescore  years  and  ten ;  and  if  by 
reason  of  strength  they  be  fourscore  years,  and  if  their 
strength  be  labor  and  sorrow,  yet  they  have  been  sweet.  —  Are 
such  lives  mere  isolated  exceptions  ?  Inasmuch  as  we  have 
no  statistics  on  the  happy  and  unhappy  lives,  the  successes 
and  failures,  I  am  for  the  present  inclined  to  put  as  much 
faith  in  the  judgment  of  a  plain  man  of  the  people  as  in  the 
eloquence  of  a  pessimistic  philosopher.    The  plain  man  would 


294 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


most  likely  argue  somewhat  as  follows  :  If  an  honorable  and 
healthy  life  is  not  an  exception,  then  a  happy  life  is  not  an 
isolated  exception  either.  The  will,  as  described  by  the  phi- 
losopher of  pessimism,  is  not  the  will  of  a  healthy  human 
being,  but  that  of  a  moody  and  spoilt  child,  and  such  a  will 
may  perhaps  experience  the  things  mentioned. 

But,  Schopenhauer  replies,  it  may  be  that  some  lives  are 
fairly  successful  in  avoiding  collisions  ;  but  does  that  change 
the  fact  that  life  as  a  whole  is  an  empty,  aimless  striving? 
We  may,  he  believes,  compare  life  to  the  struggles  of  a 
shipwrecked  mariner,  who  for  a  few  moments  struggles  with 
all  his  might  to  save  himself  from  drowning,  only  to  be  en- 
gulfed by  the  waves  at  last.  Life  is  a  ceaseless  battle  with 
death,  to  which  we  are  approaching  nearer  and  nearer  every 
day.  And  the  hopelessness  of  this  futile  business  is  increased 
by  the  cruel  irony  of  nature,  which  deludes  us  with  the  con- 
stant promise  :  "  To-morrow  there  will  be  a  change  for  the  bet- 
ter !  "  If  only  I  were  a  man,  sighs  the  unhappy  schoolboy ;  if 
only  my  examinations  and  apprenticeship  were  over,  and  I  had 
an  independent  position  and  fortune,  says  the  youth  chafing 
under  restraint ;  if  only  I  were  a  millionaire  or  a  privy  coun- 
sellor, cries  the  troubled  man,  how  I  should  enjoy  life  !  And 
all  these  wishes  are  ultimately  fulfilled,  but  the  satisfaction 
never  comes.  Yet  the  illusions  continue,  until  old  age  car- 
ries the  last  ones  into  the  grave.  But  long  before  this,  the 
cycle  has  begun  anew  in  children  and  grandchildren.  Does 
not  the  will-to-live  play  us  a  miserable  trick  ?  The  tortures 
described  by  Greek  mythology,  the  Sisyphus  stone,  the  barrel 
of  the  Danaides,  the  wheel  of  Ixion,  represent  life  itself,  not 
the  exceptionally  unhappy  life,  but  the  average  life  of  all  mor- 
tals, whose  absolute  futility  is  experienced  every  day  and  yet 
remains  forever  new. 

Indeed,  it  is  true  that  the  will-to-live  is  aimless  in  the  sense 
of  never  attaining  to  a  state  of  absolute  satisfaction ;  it  is  true 
that  it  daily  looks  forward  to  the  morrow,  expecting  from  it 


PESSIMISM 


295 


what  to-day  has  failed  to  bring ;  it  is  true,  also,  that  death 
comes  at  last,  and  that  life  does  not  produce  as  a  recompense 
for  its  troubles  an  absolutely  permanent  good  that  may  be 
possessed  and  eternally  enjoyed  or  bequeathed  to  others.  — 
But  does  that  not  prove  the  worthlessness  of  life  ? — It  seems 
to  me  that  an  error  has  crept  into  the  argument.  Life  is 
here  conceived  as  a  function  which  has  its  end,  not  in  itself, 
but  external  to  it.  This  is  an  inadequate  conception.  It  is 
customary  to  compare  life  to  a  journey.  We  regard  the 
latter  as  futile  when  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  under- 
taken fails  to  be  realized,  and  we  look  back  upon  our  fruitless 
troubles  with  dissatisfaction.  But  does  life  resemble  a  busi- 
ness trip  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  It  has  not,  like  the  latter,  an 
external  end,  an  end  of  which  it  is  the  means.  Nay,  life  is  not 
a  means,  but  an  end  in  itself.  We  could,  with  much  better 
right,  compare  it  to  a  pleasure  trip.  The  latter  too,  we 
may  say,  is  aimless,  and  yields  no  lasting  gain.  We  may  also 
say  that  we  are  never  satisfied  while  it  lasts,  in  the  sense  of 
being  willing  to  remain  at  one  place  forever.  The  desire  is 
always  in  advance  of  the  traveller,  fixating  a  point  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  when  this  is  reached,  new  desires  arise.  Even 
before  setting  forth  he  thinks  of  the  remote  summit,  and  when 
he  ascends  the  mountain,  groaning  and  perspiring,  his  longing 
eyes,  deceived  by  many  a  projecting  ridge,  are  turned  in  the 
direction  of  the  goal.  But  hardly  has  he  reached  his  destina- 
tion, when  his  desires  again  temptingly  point  to  the  inn  with  its 
promise  of  rest  and  recreation  and  final  satisfaction.  Tired, 
exhausted,  and  foot-sore,  the  traveller  at  last  reaches  his 
abode,  and  hardly  enjoying  a  few  moments  of  the  hoped-for 
rest,  begins  to  make  plans  for  the  morrow.  So  it  goes 
day  after  day,  until  he  comes  back  to  his  home,  and  rests 
his  weary  limbs  under  his  own  roof.  Now,  was  the  entire 
journey  merely  one  continuous  torture,  and  will  our  trav- 
eller swear  never  to  enter  upon  such  a  foolish  undertaking 
again  ?    No,  indeed  ;  he  has  had  an  excellent  time  ;  he  joy- 


296 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


I'   ! 

r 

(i 
nil 


fully  remembers  every  part  of  his  travels,  especially  the  most 
dangerous  and  difficult  parts,  and  enjoys  the  pleasure  of  mak- 
ing plans  for  another  trip  next  year. 

Well,  the  arguments  against  the  value  of  life  prove  no  more 
than  the  same  arguments  against  the  value  of  a  pleasure  trip. 
In  spite  of  its  aimlessness,  in  spite  of  its  illusions  and  disap- 
pointments, in  spite  of  its  pains  and  exertions,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  finally,  that  we  never  reach  a  stopping-place  where  we 
could  bear  to  abide  permanently,  it  may  be  a  very  enjoy- 
able affair  on  the  whole.  So  long  as  it  is  full  of  action  and 
change  in  work  and  in  play,  full  of  care  for  self  and  others, 
the  mind  will  delight  in  recalling  the  memories  of  the  past, 
lingering  with  special  satisfaction  upon  the  dangerous  and 
tempestuous,  troublesome  and  difficult  parts  of  the  traversed 
journey.  In  achieving  this  the  will  realizes  the  goal  at  which 
it  aims :  an  honorable  human  life  with  all  the  experiences 
belonging  to  it. 

Old  people  delight  in  narrating  incidents  from  their  lives, 
either  by  word  of  mouth  to  their  friends,  or  to  the  world  at 
large  in  printed  autobiographies.  Would  they  feel  inclined 
to  do  so  if  life  were  a  Sisyphean  labor  ?  They  evidently  re- 
gard it  in  a  different  light,  as  an  interesting  drama,  perhaps, 
full  of  action  and  excitement  for  both  actor  and  spectator, 
which,  in  spite  of  its  troubles  and  conflicts,  its  happy  and 
dangerous  crises,  at  last  comes  to  a  peaceful  ending.  The 
excitement  is  over,  the  actor  in  the  play  breathes  more 
freely ;  as  a  spectator  he  now  rehearses  the  contents  of  the 
drama  in  his  mind.  —  Would  he  be  willing  to  play  the  role 
again  ?  Schopenhauer  believes  that  if  we  were  to  ask  the 
dead  in  their  graves  whether  they  would  be  willing  to  live 
again,  they  would  shake  their  heads.  Perhaps  he  is  right ; 
who  would  be  willing  to  witness  a  play  once  more,  immedi- 
ately after  having  seen  it  performed  ?  But  that  surely  does 
not  prove  anything  against  the  value  of  the  drama.  We 
should  not  be  willing  even  to  repeat  the  experiences  of  the 


PESSIMISM 


297 


most  delightful  journey,  immediately  after  having  reached 
home.  —  Besides,  is  it  so  rare  a  thing  to  hear  old  people 
expressing  the  wish  to  be  young  again  ?  The  mature  man 
does  not  desire  to  be  a  youth  again,  the  youth  does  not  wish 
to  be  a  boy  again,  the  boy  does  not  wish  to  be  a  child  again ; 
but  many  an  old  man  wishes  to  be  young  again.  Is  it  not 
because  he  has  enjoyed  his  rest,  and  now  has  the  courage  to 
begin  the  journey  afresh  ? 

I  cannot,  therefore,  convince  myself  that  the  statement: 
Life  uniformly  brings  more  pain  than  pleasure,  more  disap- 
pointment than  satisfaction,  —  the  subjective  evidence  of  feel- 
ing declares  it  to  be  valueless,  —  is  proved  by  these  reflections 
of  the  philosophers  of  pessimism. 

3.  Tlie  moralistic  argument  asserts  that  life  is  as  worth- 
less as  it  is  unhappy,  that  it  is  absolutely  devoid  of  any- 
thing that,  objectively  considered,  can  make  it  worth  living. 
Virtue  and  wisdom  are  the  exception,  wickedness  and  fool- 
ishness the  rule.  Schopenhauer  does  not  weary  of  abusing 
mankind  in  this  strain.  Nature,  he  is  fond  of  saying, 
produces  human  beings  in  bulk,  like  worthless  factory  wares, 
and  throws  them  away  in  bulk,  in  accordance  with  the 
maxim  of  wholesale  production,  as  cheap  and  bad.  Malice 
and  ignorance  are  the  two  characteristic  qualities  of  the 
average  man.  Mediocrity  is  more  conspicuous  among  the 
masses;  the  many  are  poverty-stricken  wretches,  with  no 
higher  spiritual  desires,  intent  only  upon  eking  out  their 
miserable  existence  to  the  very  last.  Their  sole  aim  is  to 
procure  food,  and  perhaps  to  produce  progeny  for  the  same 
unhappy  lot.  Grovelling  in  the  dirt,  they  live  on,  and  when 
they  are  gone  the  very  trace  of  their  existence  is  wiped  out. 
Nor  are  they  free  from  an  admixture  of  malice :  they  look  with 
envy  and  hatred  upon  those  who  excel  them  in  mental  and 
physical  gifts,  or  in  wealth  and  rank.  Only  with  great  ef- 
fort can  the  police  keep  them  from  attacking  each  other.  As 
wild  beasts  must  be  kept  apart  by  cages,  men  must  be  pro- 


298 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


PESSIMISM 


299 


i 


■  li 


tected  against  each  other  by  criminal  laws,  cages  whose  bars 
are  forged  by  fear.  Whenever  an  opportunity  is  offered  of 
cheating  a  fellow  sufferer  or  inflicting  damage  upon  an 
envied  one,  without  danger  of  punishment,  it  is  immediately 
embraced.  Even  their  so-called  virtues  are,  when  rightly 
viewed,  made  of  the  same  stuff.  They  are  sociable  from  van- 
ity, compassionate  from  self-love,  honest  from  fear,  peace- 
loving  from  cowardice,  benevolent  from  superstition.  —  There 
is  a  small  minority  among  whom  malice  preponderates  over 
ignorance,  and  since  greater  intelligence  is  usually  connected 
with  a  stronger  will,  the  laws  are  invariably  powerless  to  re- 
strain them  from  pouncing  upon  the  others,  like  beasts  of 
prey.  The  many  are  like  sheep,  cowardly,  stubborn,  and  nar- 
row ;  the  few  like  wolves  and  foxes,  ferocious  and  deceitful. 
—  Wisdom  and  virtue,  on  the  other  hand,  are  rare  products. 
Nature  scarcely  succeeds  in  producing  two  or  three  geniuses 
in  a  century,  and  saints  are  equally  few  and  far  between. 

Thus  Schopenhauer,  the  despiser  and  accuser  of  the  human 
race,  describes,  with  passionate  eloquence,  its  moral  and  intel- 
lectual shortcomings.  He  is  not  the  only  man  who  entertains 
this  opinion.  Ever  since  the  old  Greek  sage  declared  that 
"the  most  are  worthless,"  the  sentiment  has  been  con- 
stantly repeated.  Hobbes  holds  the  same  view  of  man,  and 
La  Kochefoucauld  has  given  us,  in  his  Reflections  and  Maxims^ 
a  kind  of  hand-book  of  philosophical  Wc?i8aw<?g,  which,  in  ever- 
changing  periods,  proclaims  selfishness  and  vanity  as  the  real 
motives  of  human  nature.  Nor  did  Kant  have  a  very  favor- 
able opinion  of  human  beings. 

Are  these  views  correct  ?  Again  I  ask :  How  can  their 
truth  be  proved  ?  In  my  judgment,  ultimately  by  statistics 
alone.  The  assertion  that  there  are  more  wicked  men  than 
good  ones,  more  fools  than  sages,  can  be  proved  only  by  a 
census.  We  have  only  to  make  such  a  demand  to  see  the 
impossibility  of  the  undertaking.  Interesting  though  such 
an  investigation  would  be,  the  classes  bad,  wise,  and  stupid 


will  never  appear  in  the  census  lists.  We  may  measure  age, 
height,  and  wealth ;  for  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  there 
is  no  method  of  measurement.  Every  judgment  concerning 
the  average  value  of  men  is  therefore  purely  individual  and 
subjective ;  it  depends  upon  the  experiences  of  the  person 
judging,  and  the  standard  which  he  applies  to  man.  The 
judgment  can  lay  a  certain  claim  to  universality  only  in  case 
it  can  be  proved  that  the  investigator's  demands  were  normal, 
and  that  he  had  such  favorable  means  for  making  observa- 
tions as  to  give  his  personal  experiences  an  average  value. 
Have  those  who  proclaim  the  unworthiness  of  the  great  mass 
of  mankind  fulfilled  these  requirements  ? 

We  may  divide  the  accusers  of  human  nature  into  two 
groups :  on  the  one  side,  we  usually  find  courtiers  and  men  of 
the  world ;    on  the  other,  philosophical  recluses. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  people  who  live  at  court 
have  a  knowledge  of  the  world  and  human  nature.  Is  court- 
life  a  suitable  environment  for  the  study  of  human  nature  ? 
At  court  we  become  acquainted  with  men  who  live  at  court. 
Is  the  life  of  these  men  a  normal  life,  and  can  we  expect  from 
them  a  normal  behavior  ?  It  seems  to  me  to  be  more  than 
doubtful.  La  Rochefoucauld  made  his  observations  at  the  court 
of  Louis  XIV.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  better  medium  for 
breeding  vanity  and  selfishness  than  the  court  at  Versailles. 
Read  Taine's  description.  The  entire  nobility  of  France  were 
gathered  together  at  this  place,  not  for  work,  but  in  order  to 
reflect  the  grandeur  and  splendor  of  the  monarchy  by  their 
mere  presence.  The  entire  life  was  one  of  idle  representation ; 
no  one  lived  at  home  and  for  himself,  but  everybody  was  con- 
stantly in  the  public  gaze.  Courtiers  were  chiefly  occupied  in 
pocketing,  in  the  form  of  pensions  and  endowments,  as  much 
as  they  could  of  the  proceeds  which  the  laboring  people  poured 
into  the  royal  treasury.  The  daily  business  of  each  individual 
was  to  enjoy  himself  with  the  aid  and  at  the  expense  of  the 
rest.     It  is  not  surprising  that  of  all  the  human  vices,  vanity 


800 


CONCEPTS  AND   PRINCIPLES 


PESSIMISM 


301 


h:: 


and  malice  should  have  flourished   most  under  such  condi- 
tions.  —Frederick  the  Great  is  quoted  as  having  said  to  Sulzer 
that  he,  Sulzer,  did  not  know  the  accursed  tribe  to  which 
they  belonged.     This  was  not  a  chance  remark,  the  outburst 
of  a  temporary  mood,  but  revealed  a  contempt  for  humankind 
which  had  become  habitual  with  the  king  during  his  old  age. 
Did  Frederick  possess  a  knowledge  of  human  nature  ?    He 
undoubtedly  did  ;  but  with  what  kind  of  people  had  he  come 
in   contact  ?    With  people,  of  course,  who  gathered  at  his 
court :  with  diplomats,  whose  business  it  was  to  outwit  him 
and  each  other ;  with  literati  and  savants,  who  begged  for 
favors  and  support,  and  envied  each  other  for  what  they  re- 
ceived ;  with  servile  and  beggarly  office-seekers,  who  vied  with 
each  other  to  get  the  best  places ;  with  a  crowd  whose  pur- 
poses the  practical  eye  could  not  fail  to  fathom.    There  were 
doubtless  good  people  around  him  too,  honorable  officers  and 
upright  officials ;   but  the  others  took  the  greatest  pains  to 
attract  his  attention.     The  great  majority  of  his  subjects  who 
were  quietly  cultivating  the  fields  or  making  shoes,  he  did  not 
see ;   they    merely  represented  so  many  units  in  the  census 

lists. 

The  philosophers,  too,  have  the  reputation  of  knowing,  if 
not  men,  at  least  man.  Did  Schopenhauer,  Kant,  or  Hobbes 
have  favorable  opportunities  for  studying  human  nature  ?  I 
doubt  it.  Their  point  of  view  was  abnormal  in  more  than 
one  respect.  Above  all,  they  lacked  the  environment  in 
which  are  developed  the  most  important  relations  of  man  to 
humanity :  they  had  no  family  ties.  Surrounded  by  strangers 
whom  they  distrusted,  they  reached  a  helpless  old  age  as 
lonely  and  disconsolate  old  bachelors.  Frau  Martha  Schwert- 
lein  is  certainly  right :  "  Es  hat  noch  keinem  woUgethanr  ^ 
We  cannot  read  without  the  deepest  pity  the  descrip- 
tions  of  Kant's  old  age,  of  his  worries  over  household 
affairs,  of  his  troubles  with  his  servant ;  of  Schopenhauer's 

1  Goethe,  FausU 


efforts  to  conceal  his  money  from  burglars,  of  his  despair 
of   ever   enjoying  a  decent   conversation  at  the  hotel  table. 
These  men  not  only  needed  some  one  to  care   for  them; 
more  than  that,  they  needed   some  one  for  whom   to  care. 
Man  is  even  more  attached  to  those  for  whom  he  cares  and 
whom  he  loves  than  to  those  who   love  and  care  for  him. 
What  wonder  is  it,  then,  that  these  men  could  not  sympathize 
with  mankind  at  large   when  their  relations  to  individuals 
were  so  unsatisfactory  ?     A  man's  confidence  in  and  love  for 
humanity  depends  upon  a  few  experiences.     Should  any  one 
of  us  lose  the  five  or  ten  persons  who  are  near  and  dear  to 
him,  he  would  be  a  stranger  in    the  world ;  he  would  be- 
come an  enemy  to  mankind  if  these  five  or  ten  should  prove 
false  to  him.     We  must  also  remember  that  these  pessimists 
were  writers  and  scholars,  and  that  their  knowledge  of  human 
nature  was  acquired  in  the  world  of  authors  and  scholars. 
But  where  are  we  more  apt  to  find  vanity  and  dogmatism, 
flattery  and   an  inability  to  recognize  the  merits  of  others, 
than  in  such  surroundings  ?    I  believe  also  that  Schopenhauer 
would  not  have  formed  so  low  an  estimate  of  the  intelligence 
of  men,  if  he  had  paid  less  attention  to  book  and  newspaper 
writers,  and  more  to  the  common-sense  people  who  are  en- 
gaged in  the  practical  pursuits  of  life. 

Let  us  now  hear  the  opinion  of  healthy,  unprejudiced  men, 
of  real  men  of  the  people.  Take  Goethe.  His  was  a  rich  and 
healthy  nature,  and  few  persons  came  into  such  direct  personal 
contact  with,  and  gained  so  deep  and  wide  a  knowledge  of,  the 
life  of  the  German  people  as  did  he.  Indeed,  we  can  say  that 
hardly  a  single  phase  of  it  was  entirely  unknown  to  him.  He 
also  possessed  remarkable  powers  of  perception,  and  had  the 
happy  faculty  of  describing  his  impressions  with  unusual  force. 
His  letters  and  autobiographic  writings  acquaint  us  with  the 
world  in  which  he  lived ;  we  are  introduced  to  the  parental 
home  and  the  surroundings  of  his  youth  in  Frankfort ;  then 
to  the  circles  at  Leipsic,  Strasburg,  Sesenheim,  Wetzlar,  and 


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k'i 


Weimar.     What  kind  of  people  does  he  meet?    We  find 
agreeable  and  disagreeable  characters  among  them ;  most  of 
them  are  not  troubling  about  their  morality;  they  live  as 
human  beings  usually  live,  as  their  natures  dictate.     Few  of 
them  resemble  the  descriptions  of  the  moralistic  pessimist. 
Here  and  there,  of  course,  we  notice  a  little  perverseness  and 
some  malice,  but  more  often  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with 
natural,  amiable,  honest,  and  sensible  human  beings.    Goethe's 
poetical  creations,  in  which  he  typifies  his  conceptions  of 
human  nature,  impress  us  similarly.     In  Gotz,  in  Hgmont,  in 
Hermann  und  Dorothea^  works  in  which  he  portrays  the  popu- 
lar phases  of  German  life,  everywhere  we  discover  vigorous, 
calm  and  energetic,  cheerful  and  contented  characters.    True, 
the  petty,  effeminate,  deceitful,  and  violent  natures  are  not 
lacking;  but,  after  all,  they  merely  serve  as  foils  for  the 
others. 

Was  Goethe  unacquainted  with  the  other  side  of  the  pic- 
ture ?  Did  he  fail  to  see  what  constantly  aroused  Schopen- 
hauer's anger  and  indignation  ?  Surely  not.  In  his  Xenien, 
in  his  Spriiche  in  Versen  und  Prosa^  in  which  Goethe  settles 
accounts  with  his  literary  contemporaries,  many  a  harsh 
word  is  uttered  against  vanity  and  emptiness,  against  narrow- 
mindedness  and  baseness.  It  would  not  be  hard  to  form  a 
complete  catechism  of  pessimism  by  collecting  different  pas- 
sages from  Goethe's  writings  ;  think  of  what  might  be  done 
with  Mephistopheles  alone !  But  all  this  did  not  prevent  him 
from  going  right  on  loving  and  trusting  humanity. 

If  now  we  are  not  satisfied  with  the  testimony  of  this  wit- 
ness, let  us  turn  to  Jeremias  Gotthelf  and  his  charming  stories 
of  Swiss  peasant-life,  or  to  Fritz  Renter's  incomparable 
Stromtid,  Here  we  become  acquainted  with  the  base  scoun- 
drel, the  reckless  idler,  the  vain  fool  who  ruins  himself ;  but 
we  also  come  in  contact  with  modest,  quiet,  fruitful  labor, 
rugged  honesty,  healthy  common-sense,  a  wholesome  love  of 
everything  beautiful  and  good,  active  devotion  to  the  welfare 


of  others,  stern  opposition  to  falsehood  and  rascality,  and  we 
are  not  made  to  feel  that  the  latter  virtues  are  in  the  minority  ; 
they  by  no  means  give  up  the  battle  in  despair,  but  unite  in 
making  a  brave  and  successful  attempt  at  resistance.  Or 
look  at  the  human  world  portrayed  by  Ludwig  Richter's 
pencil,  and  do  not  fail  to  read,  at  the  same  time,  this  ex- 
cellent man's  Autobiography^  —  the  most  charming  of  all 
autobiographies. 

Are  these  men  self -deluded  and  deluding  optimists  ?  I  do  not 
believe  it.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  virtuous  and  healthy  men 
are  in  the  minority  in  the  world.  Viewed  from  the  outside 
and  in  the  mass,  human  beings  do  not  make  a  particularly 
favorable  impression.  The  observer  who  sees  them  pushing 
and  crowding  each  other  on  the  trains  and  in  the  streets  of 
the  metropolis,  at  entertainments  and  theatres,  in  public 
gatherings  and  meetings  of  all  kinds,  and  notices  their  flat- 
teries and  backbitings,  their  self-conceit  and  envy,  will  not 
be  favorably  impressed  with  the  tribe.  But  when  we  follow 
the  particular  individual  into  the  narrow  home  and  into  his 
family  and  workshop,  we  often  find  a  quite  different  person, 
a  sensible  workman,  a  prudent  manager,  a  loving  father. 
Even  the  clamorous  and  offensive  partisan  quietly  and  mod- 
estly converses  with  you  here ;  the  high-sounding  phrases 
which  he  used  in  his  speech  at  the  mass  meeting  scarcely  occur 
in  his  talk ;  he  can  listen,  deliberate,  and  doubt,  —  things  which 
no  one,  knowing  him  in  his  public  capacity,  would  ever  have 
thought  him  capable  of.  Ll  believe  that  the  nearer  we  ap- 
proach the  real  life  of  the  individual,  the  more,  as  a  rule,  we 
shall  find  to  appreciate  and  to  love,  or  at  least  to  understand 
and  excuseJ  That  is  what  the  poet  does.  Schopenhauer, 
however,  s^  mankind  only  from  the  distance  and  En  the 
mass  ;J  like  Wagner  in  Faust,  he  heard  the  distant  noises  of 
the  throng  and  turned  away  in  disgust. 

Of  course,  there  are  other  poets,  who  see  things  in  a  dif- 
ferent light.     Byron  and  Thackeray  and  many  among  the 


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II 


i  -I 


more  recent  French  and  Northern  poets,  seem  to  believe  that 
the  closer  we  come  to  life,  and  the  clearer  the  view  which  we 
get  of  it,  the  more  completely  the  beautiful  illusion  van- 
ishes. Splendor  and  happiness,  amiability  and  cordiality,  are 
but  the  theatrical  masks  of  life ;  behind  the  scenes  we  come 
face  to  face  with  its  wretchedness  and  brutality.  —  Who 
would  deny  that  this  is  often  the  case  ?  But  is  it  not  true 
that  this  description  applies  to  circles  in  which  the  chief 
business  of  life  is  to  appear  upon  the  stage  of  publicity,  be  it 
in  the  garb  of  the  politician  or  actor,  the  artist  or  society 
man,  the  promoter  or  author  ?  It  has  been  said  that  politics 
ruins  the  character.  I  believe  we  must  say  that  all  forms 
of  public  life  have  a  tendency  to  destroy  character.  Osten- 
tation and  sham  are  almost  inseparable  from  publicity.  But 
these  persons,  who,  it  is  true,  particularly  attract  the  public 
eye,  do  not  constitute  the  essence  of  a  people ;  a  nation  con- 
sisting merely  of  such  actors  could  not  live. 

Is  this  craving  for  theatrical  effect  a  peculiar  product  of 
our  age  ?  It  almost  seems  so.  And  yet  what  age  has  ever 
been  free  from  it  ?  And  when  have  persons  been  wanting  who 
made  it  their  business  to  destroy  the  illusion  by  giving  us  a 
glimpse  at  the  life  behind  the  scenes  ?  It  is  doubtful,  however, 
whether  any  age  has  ever  taken  such  delight  in  disenchanting 
us  as  the  present.  To  cast  aspersions  upon  mankind  and  to 
expose  the  less  beautiful  phases  of  our  nature  is  one  of  the 
most  popular  literary  occupations  of  the  times ;  it  has  become 
a  fad  to  show  up  falsehood  and  coarseness,  in  poetry  and  in 
prose.  Is  this  a  favorable  sign ;  does  it  mean  that  the  public 
mind  is  turning  towards  the  truth  ?  I  confess,  I  am  not  wholly 
convinced  of  it.  Besides  the  craving  for  truth,  there  is 
another  impulse  in  us  that  may  be  satisfied  by  these  things ; 
it  is  the  craving  which  feeds  upon  gossip  and  scandal.  I 
therefore  doubt  very  much  whether  the  new  school  of  art, 
which  calls  itself  the  realistic  school,  is  to  be  welcomed  as 
a  healthy  movement.     To  be  sure,  falsehood  is  not  good,  and 


we  should  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  real.     No  doubt,  there  are 
penitentiaries  and  hospitals,  and  insane  asylums  to  boot,  and 
perhaps  not  all  are  in  them  who  ought  to  be  there.     But  that 
most  persons  ought  to  be  there,  as  our  pessimistic  litterati 
try  to  make  us  believe  by  carefully  selecting  the  material  for 
our  study  of  human  nature,  cannot,  as  yet,  be  regarded  ad 
proved.     And  perhaps  even  those  who  really  ought  to  be  in 
these  institutions  do  not  like  to  visit  them.    We  cannot  advise 
every  one  to  visit  the  dissecting  room.     George  Eliot  some- 
where beautifully  says :  ["  Poor  outlines  and  shadows  of  souls 
that  we  are,  with  but  a  quickly  passing  glimpse  of  the  perfect 
and  the  true,  well  would  it  behoove  us  to  help  each  other  in 
beholding  the  blessed  light  of  heaven,  instead  of  searchiiig  each 
other's  eyes  in  order  to  detect  the  motes  in  them."  ^J  And 
Auo-ust  Francke  utters  a  no  less  valuable  truth  when  he  says : 
"  We  may  praise  the  works  of  God,  but  we  must  be  very 
careful   in  speaking   of  the  works   of  the  devil.     For  the 
human  heart  contains  sparks  of  evil  which  easily  catch  fire." 
Besides,  we  cannot,  perhaps,  abandon  ourselves  to   pessi- 
mistic reflections  without  some  danger,  —  provided,  of  course, 
we  do  not  aim  to  destroy  the  will-to-live,  as  Schopenhauer 
intends  that  we  should.     It  is  undoubtedly  wise  not  to  expect 
too  much  of  life,  hence  we  shall  do  well  to  familiarize  our- 
selves with  the  thought  that  not  all  our  wishes  will  be  ful- 
filled, and  that  not  everybody  can  be  trusted.     Thus  we  shall 
guard  against  disappointments.    On  the  other  hand,  continued 
concentration  of  the  attention  upon  the  shadow-sides  of  life 
and  human  nature  will  help  to  create  an  habitual  contempt  for 
humanity  and  a  hatred  of  life  even  in  cases  where  these  would 
not  necessarily  have  ensued.    Pessimistic  reflections  will  have 
but  little  influence  upon  an  energetic  and  healthy  nature,  but 
where  the  person  is  disposed  to  be  pessimistic,  he  will,  by 
brooding  upon  these  things  too  much,  develop  an  abnormal 

1  [I  have  not  been  able  to  find  this  passage  in  the  original,  and  have  therefore 
been  compelled  to  translate  it  from  the  German.  —  Tr.] 

20 


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if 


IH: 


W  i< 


1.' 


.(■I 


state  of  mind  in  reference  to  them.    If  a  man  were  constantly 
to  watch  the  weather,  to  see  whether  it  was  not  too  warm  or  too 
cold,  too  moist  or  too  dry  for  him,  he  would  most  likely  soon 
discover  that  not  three  days  in  the  year  were  suitable  for  a 
walk.    Similarly,  if  a  man  should  take  Schopenhauer's  advice, 
and   carefully  treasure  up  in  his  mind,  as  alimenta  misan" 
thropice^  all  the  disagreeable  experiences  which  he  had  had  with 
human  beings,  brooding  over  them  day  after  day,  he  would 
certainly  come  to  regard  all  men  as  scoundrels   and  abor- 
tions, or  "  factory-wares  of  nature,"  and  succeed  in  making 
himself  miserable.     If    you  are  not    willing  to    do  this,   it 
will  be  wiser  for  you  to  contemplate  the  sunny  sides  of  life, 
and  to  search  for  what  will  raise  your  estimate  of  mankind, 
or  at  least  serve  to  excuse  them.     Schopenhauer  advises  us  to 
be  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  the  baseness  of  men,  and  to 
use  it  as  a  means  of  feeding  our  hatred  of  humanity.    Perhaps 
the  following  would  be  sounder  advice  :    Do  not  expect  human 
beings  to  serve  you  without  asking  something  in  return,  but 
rejoice  nevertheless  when  you  find  an  exception,  and  believe 
firmly  that  there  are  not  only  persons  who  will  take  advantage 
of  their  fellows,  wherever  they  can  do  so  with  impunity,  but  also 
that  there  are  some  who  will  delight  in  being  able  to  help  them 
without  being  asked.    Likewise  do  not  count  upon  gratitude ; 
but  rejoice  when  you  meet  a  man  who  cheerfully  and  sincerely 
accepts  your  help,  and  whose  eye  betokens  his  appreciation  of 
the  gift  as  well  as  of  the  giver ;  and  firmly  believe  that  such 
men  still  exist,  pessimism  and  social-democratic  arrogance  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding.     And  I  should  regard  it  as  one 
of  the  functions  of  poetry  to  arouse  such  sentiments.     To  be 
sure,  it  ought  to  portray  people  as  they  are,  and  not  shadowless 
phantoms.     The  sugar-dolls  of  sentimental  novels  destroy  our 
taste  for  reality  and  produce  moral   dyspepsia,  utterly  cor- 
rupting the  taste.     The  present,  t  seems,  is  afflicted  with  this 
very  disease.     During  the  days  of  Auerbach's  and  Freytag's 
novels,  we  flattered  the  vanity  of  the  virtuous  bourgeoisie  and 


professorial  tribe  too  much ;  under  the  influence  of  socialistic 
criticisms  of  society  we  are  now  experiencing  the  reaction.  We 
shall  recuperate,  of  course  ;  and  then  art  will  again  recognize 
that  it  is  its  mission  to  portray  healthy,  active,  and  energetic 
life,  using  baseness  and  mendacity  simply  as  a  foil.  A  poem 
which  contemplates  and  portrays  the  base  for  its  own  sake 
must  be  regarded  as  a  pathological  phenomenon,  and  can  only 
serve  as  a  means  of  spreading  disease.^ 

But  let  us  return  to  our  subject.  In  view  of  what  we  have 
said,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  pessimism  can  claim  to  be  a 
scientifically  proved  theory.  It  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  nothing 
but  an  expression  of  the  individual's  experiences  with  life  and 
man,  presented  in  the  form  of  universal  judgments.  The 
conclusion.  Life  is  worthless,  means,  when  reduced  to  its 
simplest  terms :  It  did  not  yield  what  I  expected.  The 
proposition.  Men  are  worthless,  means :  Men  have  treated  me 
badly  ;  I  take  no  pleasure  in  them  and  do  not  care  for  their 
welfare.  We  are  generally  inclined  to  express  our  individual 
experiences  in  the  form  of  universal  propositions.  A  parti- 
cular person  has  met  three  Englishmen  during  his  lifetime ; 
he  did  not  like  them ;  he  will  invariably  say  :  Englishmen  are 
unmannerly  or  crazy  people.  It  is  as  Spinoza  says  :  JEt  dum 
tram  evomunt,  sapient ea  videri  volunt. 

There  is  another  fact  which  encourages  men  to  form  univer- 
sal propositions  in  regard  to  the  baseness  of  life  and  mankind. 
There  is  something  quieting  and  consoling  in  the  thought. 
When  a  man  has  been  deceived  by  his  wife,  he  declares  that 
women  are  good  for  nothing.  When  a  writer  is  ignored  by 
the  public,  he  says  :  The  masses  have  never  been  able  to  tell 

J  If  I  interpret  the  play  correctly,  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  aims  to  show  —  at  least 
it  does  show  —  how  a  great  soul  may  be  ruined  by  constantly  attending  to  the 
vulgar  and  base.  Hamlet's  entire  life  is  devoted  to  the  detection  and  nnmask- 
ing  of  evil,  to  the  analysis  and  microscopic  examination  of  the  low,  to  the 
rhetorical  exaggeration  of  the  repulsive ;  and  the  paralysis  of  his  own  being  is 
the  result.  I  have  developed  this  idea  in  an  article  in  the  Deutsche  Rundschau, 
(May,  1889),  Hamlet,  Die  Tragodie  des  Pessimismus. 


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309 


the  difference  between  the  good  and  the  bad.  It  intensifies 
our  pain  to  tell  ourselves  that  what  we  have  suffered  is  an 
exception,  and  contrary  to  fate,  as  it  were ;  our  grief  is 
assuaged  by  the  reflection  that  it  is  the  universal  lot.  Schopen- 
hauer made  a  theory  for  all  the  pains  he  suffered,  for  those 
caused  by  women  and  by  men,  by  street  arabs  and  university 
professors.  His  pessimism  is  the  general  theory  of  his  partic- 
ular theories.  It  undoubtedly  helped  him  to  endure  his 
sorrows.  Pessimism  was  his  household  remedy  against  his 
chronic  ill-humor  which  resulted  from  his  temperamental 
defect,  dyBcholia,  The  remedy  did  not  succeed  in  removing 
the  disease,  but  it  acted  like  an  opiate,  it  assuaged  his  pain. 
Who  does  not  use  it  in  the  same  way  occasionally  ?  It  has 
another  property :  it  quiets  the  conscience.  The  universal 
proposition  acquits  the  ego,  so  to  speak.  If  I  were  the  only 
one  having  a  hard  time  of  it,  if  I  alone  were  unable  to  get 
along  with  men,  it  would  be  hard  to  deny  that  not  the  others, 
but  that  I  myself  was  at  fault.  In  case,  however,  everybody 
meets  with  the  same  experiences,  then  they  are  perfectly 
natural,  and  I  am  not  to  be  blamed.  Besides,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  the  most  pronounced  egoist  usually  complains 
most  of  egoism.  He  accuses  others  of  egoism  when  they 
refuse  to  lend  themselves  to  his  selfish  desires.  Goethe  seems 
to  have  noticed  the  same  thing  :  he  dedicated  the  following 
lines  to  the  "  Crotchet-mongers"  {Grillenfanger) : 

Fiirchtet  hinter  diesen  Launeo, 
Diesem  ausstaffierten  Schmerz, 
Diesen  triiben  Augenbraunen 
Leerheit  oder  schlechtes  Herz. 

4.  The  historical-philosophical  argument  aims  to  show 
that  as  civilization  advances,  mankind  becomes  more  and 
more  unhappy  and  bad.  Schopenhauer  represents  historical- 
philosophical  pessimism  on  the  hedonistic  side,  Rousseau  on 
the  moralistic  side.  The  former  is  fond  of  telling  us  that  civil- 
ization tends  to  increase  pain,  while  the  latter  emphasizes  the 


other  aspect,  and   claims  that  civilization  tends  to   destroy 

morality. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  pessimistic  view  of  history 
can,  in  a  certain  measure,  appeal  for  support  to  common- 
sense.     The  conception  of  historical  life  which  has  been  cur- 
rent among  European  nations  since  the  advent  of  Christianity 
follows  the  Jewish  myth,  and  places  perfection  at  the  begin- 
ning of  things.     The  original  state  of  the  human  race  was 
divided  between   the  happiness  and  innocence  of  Paradise. 
History   really  begins  with  the  fall  of  man,  and  the  end 
towards  which   it    is  moving  is  the  judgment   day.      Sin, 
misery,  and  corruption  will  continue  to  increase  until  they 
reach  their  maximum  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Antichrist,  and 
inaugurate  the  end  of  the  world.  —  The  Greeks,  too,  were 
familiar  with  this  conception  of  the  progress  of  human  his- 
tory.    Hesiod  gives  expression  to  it  in  his  description  of  the 
ages  of  the  world,  beginning  with  the  golden  age  and  ending 
with  the  iron  age,  in  which  the  poet  complains  that  he  has 
been  condemned  to  live.  —  Perhaps  the  conception  may  be 
explained  psychologically.     The  temperament  of  old   age  is 
optimistic  in  reference  to  the  past.     The  old  man  is  unable 
to  keep  in  touch  with  the  present ;  he  is  powerless  to  accom- 
plish anything,  and  seeks  the  cause  for  it,  not  in  himself,  but 
in  the  times,  which,  in  his  opinion,  are  growing  worse  and 
worse.     The  past,  on  the  other  hand,  glows  with  the  memo- 
ries of  youth.     Old  age  is  the  bearer  of  historical  reminis- 
cences ;  from  it  the  young  receive  intelligence  of  the  past,  and 
are  taught  to  view  the  past  in  the  light  of  old  age.     The  ten- 
dency to  admire,  which  is  peculiar  to  youth,  and  the  tendency 
to  believe  in  a  great  and  glorious  descent,  assist  in  the  pro- 
cess.    Finally,  the  tendency  to  employ  history  as  an  instru- 
ment of  moral  preaching  has  the  same  effect.     Whoever,  for  ^ 
any  reason  or  other,  is  dissatisfied  with  the  present,  loves  to 
humiliate  it  by  holding  up  to  it  the  picture  of  a  better  past. 
With  the  rise  of   historical  research,   the   splendor   with 


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CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


which  legend   surrounded   the    beginnings    vanished.      The 
scientific  investigations  of  modern  times  have  begun  to  tlirow 
light  upon  the  real  past.   As  a  consequence,  our  historical  con- 
ceptions have  been  completely  changed.     The  leaders  of  the 
seventeenth  century  transferred  the  golden  age  from  the  past 
to  the  future,  and  the  eighteenth  century  systematized  the  new- 
view,  conceiving  histor}'^  as  a  steady  progress  from  meagre 
beginnings  to  a   state  of   glorious  perfection,  which,  it  was 
supposed,  would  be  realized  in  the  period  of  Enlightenment. 
Rousseau  inaugurated  a  reaction  against  the  optimistic  con- 
ception of  history.    Romanticism  created  the  notion  of  a  wise 
and  perfect  primitive  race,  which  also  haunted  the  philosophy 
of  Schelling.     Schopenhauer  too  is  a  genuine  child  of  Roman- 
ticism in  his  philosophy  of  history.     He  absolutely  fails  to 
see  a  change  for  the  better  in  history  ;  indeed  he  is  inclined  to 
deny  that  there  is  any  logic  in  history.     The  names  and  cus- 
toms change,  but  the  contents  of  the  play  remain  eternally 
the  same.    Only  in  one  respect  does  Schopenhauer  find  un- 
mistakable  evidences  of  development:  pain  is   certainly  in- 
creasing.    Brutes  are  the  happiest,  or,  rather,  the  least  un- 
happy creatures ;  while  increase  of  knowledge  means  increase 
of  sorrow  for  man.     Qui  auget  scientiam,  auget  dolorem. 
His  reasons  for  this  view  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

(1)  With  the  increasing  complexity  of  its  nature,  a  creature 
becomes  more  and  more  sensitive  to  pain.  Now,  every  ad- 
vance in  civilization  means  a  multiplication  of  needs  and 
the  necessary  means  of  satisfying  them.  Hence,  as  civiliza- 
tion advances,  desire,  misery,  and   disappointment  increase. 

(2)  Intelligence  develops,  and  man  gains  an  insight  into  the 
future.  The  animal  lives  in  the  present ;  it  feels  the  pain  of 
the  moment  only.  In  case  the  conditions  of  life  become  too 
unfavorable,  it  dies  without  really  experiencing  the  death 
which  it  did  not  foresee.  Man  sees  the  evils  coming  upon 
him ;  he  foresees  old  age  and  death ;  fear  and  anxiety  are 
added  to  pain,  and  they  are  greater  tortures  than  pain  itself. 


PESSIMISM 


311 


Indeed,  the  fear  of  death  may  lead  to  suicide.    (3)  Man's  per- 
sonality is  doubled,  as  it  were  ;  in  addition  to  his  real  self  he 
has  an'ideal  self.     The  ideal  ego  is  no  less  vulnerable,  no  less 
susceptible  to  pain,  than  the  real  ego.     Defeated  ambition, 
wounded  pride,  unrequited  love,  are  inexhaustible  sources  of 
torture  ;  calumny  and  dishonor  wound  us  more  deeply  than 
bodily  hurts.    This  vulnerability  also  increases  with  the  prog- 
ress of  civilization ;  the  higher  the  stage  of  civilization,  the 
more  complex  society  grows,  and  the  more  dependent  men 
become  upon  each  other.    The  higher  the  social  rank  of  an 
individual,  the  more  he  is  exposed  to  the  criticisms  of  others. 
How  unconcerned  the  peasant  lives  in  this  regard ;  and  how 
much  sorrow  falls  into  the  life  of  the  politician  and  author! 
(4)   In  still  another  respect  is  the  life  of  man  expanded, 
and  his  vulnerability   increased.     The   sympathetic   feelings 
develop,  and  he  now  feels  the  sorrows  of  others  as  well  as  his 
own.     The  animal  is  unaffected  by  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  its  companions,  while  even  the  brutal  man  sympathizes 
with  his  surroundings.     He  is  moved  by  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  those  he  loves,  and  so  dies  many  deaths.     And  the 
best  men  suffer  the  most :  in  addition  to  their  own  particular 
sorrows  they   feel   the    universal   sorrows;    we   can  hardly 
imagine  great  and  good  men  without  a  trace  of  melancholy. 

These  statements  are  not  untrue,  but  they  are  onesided. 
Not  only  is  the  susceptibility  to  pain  increased:  sensibility 
is  intensified  in  both  directions.  Pleasures  as  well  as  pains 
become  more  manifold  and  intense.  We  undoubtedly  inter- 
pret the  phenomena  of  bodily  life  correctly  when  we  assume 
that  vertebrates  suffer  more  violent  pains  than  invertebrates. 
The  tearing  of  the  body  of  a  worm  surely  causes  pain,  but 
this  can  hardly  be  compared  to  that  suffered,  say  by  a  dog, 
when  a  single  nerve  tract  is  severed.  It  is  also  unquestion- 
ably true  that  the  pleasurable  feelings  aroused  in  a  dog  by 
the  chase  are  incomparably  more  intense  than  those  experi- 
enced by  the  rain  worm  in  searching  for  its  food. 


312 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


PI 

''ft' 


We  must  therefore  supplement  the  above  pessimistic 
reflections  if  we  would  reach  the  truth.  It  is  said :  (1)  As 
life  develops,  needs  and  therefore  pains  increase.  Very  true ; 
but  the  means  of  satisfying  the  needs  also  increase.  To 
this  end  action  becomes  more  and  more  complex,  greater 
and  more  developed  powers  and  capacities  are  set  in  motion, 
and  as  a  consequence  the  accompanying  pleasures  are  also 
increased.  Compare  the  life  and  activity  of  the  prehistoric 
inhabitants  of  our  coast,  who  have  left  the  traces  of  their 
existence  in  the  so-called  Kjokkenmdddingem,  with  the  life 
and  the  activity  of  the  peasants  and  mechanics,  the  fishermen 
and  sailors,  who  at  present  inhabit  the  same  regions.  We 
are  surely  justified  in  saying  that  for  the  increase  of  trouble, 
want,  and  wretchedness  in  their  lives,  there  has  been  a  corre- 
sponding increase  of  pleasure  in  their  work  and  its  results. 
I  do  not  wish  to  claim  that  the  increase  in  pleasure  exceeds 
the  increase  in  pain ;  this  may  be  so,  but  it  cannot  be  proved. 
But  it  is  surely  just  as  hard  to  prove  the  reverse. 

(2)  It  is  held  that  the  fear  and  anxiety  caused  by  the  pre- 
vision of  future  pain  increases  pain.  Indeed,  if  all  pains 
consisted  merely  in  momentary  feelings,  they  would  not  be 
hard  to  bear;  privations,  sorrows,  and  even  physical  pains 
oppress  us  so  because  they  are  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  a 
long  series.  But  pleasures,  too,  owe  their  real  human  char- 
acter and  worth  to  the  fact  that  they  are  anticipated  by  hope ; 
and  we  may  say  that  the  human  heart  is  not  so  unhappily 
constituted  as  to  be  more  susceptible  to  fear  than  to  hope. 
Temperaments  differ;  but  perhaps  our  expectations  of  the 
future  are  falsified  by  hope  more  often  than  by  fear.  And 
perhaps  memory  is  a  still  greater  falsifier,  if  you  please, 
than  hope,  in  giving  us  a  cheerful  view  of  life.  The  happy 
and  joyful  days  which  we  have  spent  linger  in  memory  as  a 
source  of  pleasure ;  nay,  memory  idealizes  them ;  it  retouches 
the  picture  by  removing  the  unpleasant  and  disturbing  ele- 
ments which  are  seldom  wanting  in  reality.     Days,  on  the 


I 


I 


I 


PESSIMISM 


313 


other  hand,  which  were  full  of  misery  and  struggle,  sorrow 
and  care,  lose  their  sting  in  memory ;  sorrow  at  the  loss  of  a 
good  is  transformed  into  a  mild,  tender  sadness ;  the  remem- 
brance of  miseries  and  troubles  endured  fills  us  with  pride  : 
olim  meminisse  Juvabit,  —  so  the  Roman  poet  consoles 
the  heavy-laden.  Are  not  autobiographies  almost  always 
biodicies  ? 

Die  Freuden  bliihn  mir  noch, 
Die  Leiden  sind  erblichen.^ 

(3)  As  for  the  pains  caused  by  hurts  to  the  ideal  self,  we 
may  also  say  that  they  are  supplemented  by  the  pleasures  which 
result  from  the  recognition  we  receive  from  others,  and  from  the 
successful  struggle  for  the  prize  bestowed  upon  merit.  And 
could  the  higher  human  functions  ever  have  been  developed 
if  men  did  not  strive  after  honor  and  distinction  ?  We  may 
also  call  to  mind  that  human  nature  possesses  a  cure  against 
ideal  wounds.  Injury  and  neglect  make  us  proud,  and  pride 
heals  pain.  Schopenhauer  had  ample  opportunity  for  observ- 
ing this  truth  in  his  own  case. 

(4)  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  pains  which  arise  from 
sympathy :  they,  too,  are  supplemented  by  the  pleasures  which 
arise  from  our  participation  in  the  weal  and  woe  of  others. 
If  we  may  believe  an  old  proverb,  sympathy  with  the  lot 
of  others  has  a  very  favorable  effect  upon  the  happiness  of 
the  parties  concerned  :  G-eteilter  Schmerz  ist  halher  Schmerz  ; 
geteilte  Freude  ist  doppelte  Freude  ;  ^  which  would  make  a  four- 
fold gain. 

To  sum  up :  As  civilization  advances,  the  sorrows  and  the 
pleasures  grow  in  extensity  and  in  intensity.  Does  the  pleas- 
ure exceed  the  pain  ?  Historical  optimism  confidently  asserts 
that  the  progress  of  history  increases  happiness.  Pessimism 
with  equal  confidence  sets  up  the  counter-claim  that  it  in- 
creases sorrow.     I  regard  both  assertions  as  equally  incapable 

1  Riickert. 

^  A  divided  pain  is  half  a  pain ;  divided  pleasure  is  double  pleasure. 


J 


314  CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 

of  proof.  Both  of  them  may  be  made  very  plausible  by 
rhetorical  arguments,  but  there  is  really  no  way  of  definitely 
deciding  the  matter.  One  thing  alone  seems  certain  to  me, 
that  as  sensibility  increases,  sorrows  and  pleasures  become 
more  intense.  In  the  same  ratio  ?  Perhaps.  But  this  would 
not  mean  that  the  sum-total  of  the  pains  and  the  pleasures, 
considered  and  added  as  negative  and  positive  quantities,  was 
always  equal  to  zero.  I  rather  incline  to  the  view  that,  just  as 
health  and  normal  forms  are  more  common  than  disease  and 
malformations,  pleasure  is  more  common  than  pain.  But  let 
me  repeat :  We  cannot  measure  and  add  the  feelings  or  their 
intensities.  Nay,  I  believe  that  if  any  one,  with  a  view  to 
gathering  statistics,  were  to  ask  particular  individuals  whether 
they  felt  pain  or  pleasure  at  that  particular  moment,  he  would 
frequently  receive  the  answer :  I  have  not  paid  any  attention 
to  the  matter ;  and  if  he  were  to  persist  in  interrogating  his 
subjects,  he  would  be  told:  I  really  do  not  know  myself  — 
which  would  plainly  show  that  they  did  not  attribute  the  im- 
portance to  pleasure  and  pain  which  hedonistic  and  pessimistic 
philosophers  ascribe  to  them. 

6.  Let  me  say  a  few  words  in  reference  to  the  moralistic 
phase  of  historical  pessimism,  which  Rousseau  preached  with 
such  impassioned  eloquence  during  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century.  He  regards  the  primitive  state  of  man  as  a  state  of 
innocence  and  virtue,  from  which  civilization  is  deviating  more 
and  more.  The  nearer  we  approach  the  original  state,  the 
more  purity  and  virtue  we  find.  These  virtues  may,  in 
Eousseau's  opinion,  still  be  found  among  shepherds  and 
peasants ;  we  shall  seek  for  them  in  vain  in  Parisian  society  ,i 
at  the  court  of  Versailles.  In  his  celebrated  maiden  work,  in 
which  he  discusses  the  question  whether  the  revival  of  science 
and  letters  has  contributed  anything  to  purify  morals,  he  is  in- 
clined  to  seek  the  causes  of  moral  decay  in  the  development  of 
the  sciences  and  the  arts.     A  second  question,  proposed  by 

1  [Discours  sur  les  sciences  et  les  arts,  1749.  — Tr.] 


m 


PESSIMISM 


315 


the  Academy  of  Dijon,  concerning  the  origin  of  the  inequal- 
ity among  men,  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  modify  his  state- 
ment to  the  effect  that  the  development  of  social  classes  is 
the  immediate  cause  of  moral  decay.^    As  civilization  advances, 
so  we  may  summarize  his  views,  differences  arise  between  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  the  high  and  the  low,  masters  and  servants  ; 
and  thus  human  nature,  which  is  fundamentally  good,  deterio- 
rates.    On  the  one  side  arise  the  lordly  vices:  haughtiness, 
arrogance,  and  cruelty.     Social  differentiation  likewise  tends 
to  destroy  our  natural  judgments  of  value.     The  natural  value 
of  things  consists  in  their  satisfying  genuine  needs.     In  society 
a  conventional  value  takes  the  place  of  the  natural  one ; 
things  are  prized  in  so  far  as  they  confer  social  distinction. 
Diamonds  and  pearls  have  no  natural  value,  or,  perhaps,  only  a 
trivial  one  as  ornaments.     In  society,  however,  they  are  highly 
prized  as  marks  of  wealth  and  nobility ;  they  owe  their  value 
to  the  fact  that  others  do  not  possess  them.     So  knowledge 
receives  a  conventional  value  in  society ;  under  the  name  of 
culture  it  confers  social  distinction.     But  such  knowledge  is 
not  the  same  as  that  which  is  really  valuable  for  life.     That 
knowledge  has  true  worth  which  makes  its  possessor  wiser  or 
more  prudent.     Culture  and  learning  often  do  the  opposite  ; 
they  suppress  healthy  common-sense  and  natural   power  of 
judgment.     In  the  same  way  polite  manners  and  good  form 
usurp  the  position  which  belongs  to  virtue  alone.     Thus  false- 
hood and  semblance  corrupt  the  life  of  society.     Nous  avons 
de  Vhonneur  sans  vertu,  de  la  raison  sans  sagesse^  et  du  plaisir 
sans  bonheur :  thus  Rousseau's    Contrat  Social  sums  up  his 
opinion  of  the  culture  and  enlightenment  of  his  age,  in  one 
of  those  epigrams  which  leave  such  a  vivid  impression  upon  the 
memory. 

These  statements,  again,  are  not  untrue,  but  they  are  one- 
sided. Civilization,  with  its  accompanying  social  differentia- 
tion, undoubtedly  creates  new  perversities  and  vices,  but  it  also 

*  l^Discours  sur  Vorigme  et  le  Jondement  de  Vin^gcdile  pariui  les  hommeSf  1754] 


316 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


'I 


produces  new  virtues.     There  are  lordly  virtues  as  well  as 
vices:  courage,  magnanimity,  self-control,   dignity,    circum- 
spection, benevolence.     And  servants,  too,  have  their  virtues 
as  well  as  their  vices :  loyalty,  devotion,  faithfulness.     When 
his  social  position  corresponds  to  the  natural  endowments  of  a 
man,  when  every  man  takes  the  place  for  which  his  natural 
capacities  fit  him,  there  can  be  no   more  favorable  conditions 
for  the  development  of  character,  and  both  sides  will   regard 
the  relation  as  a  happy  one.     Just  as  little  reason  have  we  to 
believe  that  the  commodities  which  civilization  produces  have 
merely  an  artificial  value.     Science  and  art  surely   possess 
natural  and  genuine  worth,  even  though  perverse  forms  of 
pedantry  and  pseudo-culture  are  not  infrequent ;  nor  have  the 
commodities  produced  and  made  accessible  by  trade  and  com- 
merce mere  artificial  value.  —  Rousseau's  dream  of  a  happy 
and  innocent  state  of  nature  belongs  to  the  past;  it  is  the 
dream  of  the    age   of  Louis   XV.;    it  does  not  reflect  a 
real   world  found  in  the  South  Sea  Islands  or  among  the 
Indians,  but  represents  the  exact  opposite  of  the  society  which 
dreamed  it.    Contact  with  uncivilized  peoples  never  reveals  the 
proud  and  sincere,  the  virtuous  and  happy  savages  who  are 
mentioned  in  the  novels  of  the  eighteenth  century.     J.  S.  Mill 
holds,  in   an  essay    On  Nature,    that  no  remarkable  human 
quality  is  a  natural  endowment,  but  the  result  of  civilization. 
Courage,  veracity,  cleanliness,    self-control,   justice,  benevo- 
lence are  acquired  characteristics ;  fear,  mendacity,  filthiness, 
intemperance,  brutality,  selfishness,  —  these  are  the  character- 
istics which  impartial  observers  discover  in  the  physiognomy 

of  the  savage. 

Shall  we,  then,  say  that  the  race  grows  more  moral  as  civil- 
ization advances  ?  I  should  not  deny  it,  but  historical  pessi- 
mism might  bring  some  powerful  arguments  to  bear  against 
Mill's  view.  It  may  be  that  the  uncivilized  do  not  possess  the 
virtues  referred  to,  but  they  also  lack  the  vices  of  civilization. 
If  we  look  at  the  criminal  life  of  a  European  metropolis,  or 


PESSIMISM 


317 


peer  into  the  secrets  which  hide  behind  the  name  of  polite 
society,  and  which  the  writers  most  popular  with  that  class 
are  so  fond  of  divulging,  we  shall  have  to  confess  that  the 
vices  of  the  savage  are  childish  pranks  compared  with  the 
subtle  forms  of  repulsive  pleasure,  deceitful  malice,  and  utter 
baseness  to  be  found  there.  —  Can  we  say  that  these  are 
unfortunate  exceptions;  that,  generally  speaking,  there  is  a 
greater  gain  on  the  side  of  virtue  than  on  the  side  of 
vice  ?  How  hopeless  it  would  be  to  attempt  to  prove  such  an 
assertion  may  be  seen  by  asking  a  concrete  question :  Are  the 
Germans  of  the  new  Empire  better  or  worse,  morally  con- 
sidered, than  the  Germans  of  the  Avfkldrung,  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  Crusades,  or  of  the  days  of  Hermann? — All  that 
can  be  said  with  certainty  in  this  connection  is,  again,  that 
there  is  an  increase  in  moral  differentiation.  Just  as  the 
pains  and  pleasures  are  growing  in  intensity,  the  virtues  and 
vices  are  becoming  greater  and  more  specific.  Animals,  we 
might  say,  stand  at  the  zero-point ;  they  are  neither  good  nor 
bad.  /Moralization  begins  with  humanization.  Jin  the  lower 
stages  the  differences  are  insignificant,  the  individuals  resem- 
ble each  other,  they  are  exemplars  which,  on  the  whole,  express 
the  genus  in  the  same  way.  /As  civilization  advances,  indi- 
vidualization increases ;  [good  and  evil  stand  out  in  greater 
relief.  The  masses,  to  be  sure,  do  not  rise  beyond  a  colorless 
mean  ;  they  have  good  as  well  as  evil  impulses.  But  in  par- 
ticular personalities  good  and  evil  stand  out  in  bold  relief. 
On  the  one  hand,  we  have  deep  and  reverent  love,  self-sacrific- 
ing loyalty,  passionate  devotion  to  truth  and  justice ;  on  the 
other,  complete  and  total  depravity.  Nevertheless,  nothing 
prevents  us  from  believing  that  there  is  more  good  than  evil 
in  the  world,  that  the  evil,  as  the  abnormal,  is  the  less  fre- 
quent. One  thing  alone  seems  undeniable,  and  that  is  that 
the  contrasts  are  becoming  more  marked.  And  perhaps  this 
will  continue  to  be  the  case.  Just  as,  according  to  the 
Hebrew  myth,  the  natural  world  began  with  the  separation 


318 


CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 


PESSIMISM 


319 


: 


n 


of  darkness  from  light,  so,  according  to  the  same  profound 
story,  the  historical  world  began  with  the  distinction  between 
good  and  evil.  And  according  to  the  Christian  conception, 
which  adopts  this  myth,  history  consists  in  continuing  the 
process  of  separation.  In  the  kingdom  of  God  and  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  devil  the  opposition  between  good  and  evil  is 
most  highly  marked.  Humanity  stands  between  the  two,  and 
gradually  divides  into  two  groups,  some  being  attracted  and 
wholly  absorbed  by  the  kingdom  of  God,  others  by  the  king- 
dom of  the  devil,  until  the  judgment  day  shall  bring  about  the 
absolute  and  final  expulsion  of  the  evil. 

6.  But,  some  one  may  ask,  if  all  this  is  so,  if  one  thing 
alone  is  certain,  namely,  that  as  civilization  advances  sensi- 
bility and  consequently  the  intensity  of  pleasures  and  pains 
increase,  and  moral  differentiation  and  a  corresponding 
increase  in  the  intensity  of  good  and  evil  take  place ;  and  if 
it  is  doubtful  whether  the  gain  on  the  side  of  virtue  and 
happiness  exceeds  that  on  the  side  of  vice  and  unhappiness, 
if  the  natural  course  of  historical  development  does  not  lead 
to  the  expulsion  of  evil,  but  this  must  await  the  coming  of 
the  judgment  day,  that  is,  the  end  of  our  temporal  earthly 
life, —  if  all  this  is  so,  then  is  not  pessimism  in  the  right? 
Then  is  not  Schopenhauer's  statement  concerning  the  aim- 
lessness  and  un worthiness  of  life  correct  ?  Are  not  all  work 
and  care,  all  struggle  and  sacrifice,  in  vain  ? 

I  do  not  think  so.  It  would  not  be  the  case,  even  if  we 
granted  that  good  and  evil,  pleasure  and  pain,  were  always 
present  and  increased  in  the  same  ratio,  so  that  their  sum, 
as  positive  and  negative  quantities,  would  always  be  equal 
to  zero.  We  shall  be  still  less  willing  to  decide  in  favor  of 
pessimism  when  we  make  an  assumption  which  cannot  be 
proved,  but  which  nothing  hinders  us  from  believing,  namely, 
that  virtue  and  welfare  always  overbalance  vice  and  failure, 
and  that  this  preponderance  is  always  in  the  same  ratio. 

The  pessimistic  argument  falsely  assumes  that  the  worth 


of  historical  life   consists  in  its   realizing  a  final  state  of 
absolute  happiness    and   absolute    perfection.     But,  in    the 
first  place,  there  can  never  be  such  a  final  state.    Life,  his- 
torical  life,   is  inconceivable  without  oppositions  :  absolute 
happiness  and  absolute  perfection  make  striving  and  there- 
fore   life    impossible.     Moreover,  the  value    of  life    is   not 
determined  by  the  end  which  it  reaches,  but  by  its  entire 
course.     So  it  is  with  an  individual  life.     Boyhood  and  youth 
are  valuable  not  only  because  they  lead  up  to  manhood,  but 
valuable  in  themselves,  just  as  valuable    as   manhood   and 
old  age.    The  same  may  be  said  of  historical  life.    Let  us 
sincerely   hope   that  later  generations   will  be  happier  and 
more  virtuous  than   their   predecessors ;   but   it  will   be   no 
reproach  to  history  if  they  are  not.     The   preceding  ages 
are  not  merely  means  to  an  end,  not  merely  so  many  stages 
over  which  the  last  one  passes  to  perfection  and  happiness  :  — 
they   lived    their    own   life,   and    this    had   an   independent 
value.     The  Greeks   and  Romans  did  not  live  in  order  to 
leave  us  a  few  remnants  of  their  civilization ;  they  lived  for 
their  own  sakes,  and  their  life  merely  receives  additional 
value  from   the  fact   that  it  forms  a  part  of  the  larger  life 
of  humanity.     Had  history  ended,  as  primitive  Christianity 
expected,   with   the   first   century  of   our   era,  the  value  of 
the  historical  life  preceding  it  would  not  have  been  destroyed 
and  annulled,  as  it  were ;  but  just  as  each  day  of  historical 
life  has  its  own  cares,  so  it  has  its  own  worth,  of  which  no 
subsequent  occurrence  can  deprive  it.     It  can  only  be  enhanced 
in  value  by  being  rationally  connected  with  the  next  day. 
Historical  life  has  often  been  compared  to  a  drama ;  indeed, 
it  is  the  great  drama,  of  which  all  the  dramas  of  the  poets 
are  but  small  imitations.     No  one  believes  that  the  drama 
on  the  stage  receives  its  value  from  the  last  act  or  from  the 
final  state  realized  by  the  persons  in  the  cast.     Its  value  is 
determined  by  the  contents  of  the  entire  play;  each  scene 
contributes  to  it.     We,  of  course,  demand  that  the  scenes  of 


320 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


^•^ 


/ 


\ 


the  drama  be  more  than  disconnected  fragments ;  we  expect 
them  to  make  a  rational  whole,  in  which  each  particular  ele- 
ment shall  have  its  teleologically  necessary  place.  We  expect 
a  similar  connection  and  progress  in  history.  The  particu- 
lar events  and  the  particular  actors  must  not  merely  form  a 
disconnected  aggregate  or  succession,  but  a  natural  and  har- 
monious whole.  It  is  true,  as  I  have  repeatedly  pointed  out,  we 
cannot  reveal  the  logical  connection  in  the  history  of 
humanity,  as  we  can  interpret  a  drama,  and  show  how  the 
different  parts  necessarily  follow  from  the  idea  of  the  whole ; 
this  would  be  the  business  of  the  philosophy  of  history.  But 
to  this  branch  of  knowledge  the  Pythagorean  maxim  that  God 
alone  has  philosophy  is  particularly  applicable.  We  human 
beings  look  at  history  as  the  multitude,  according  to  Goethe, 
look  at  a  play ;  they  see  the  particular  occurrences  and  are 
pleased  with  the  constant  change  of  scene,  but  they  do  not 
grasp  the  meaning  of  the  whole.  So  our  historical  science 
brings  together  a  lot  of  fragments ;  but  the  master  who  will 
form  them  into  a  whole,  who  will  rethink  the  divine  thought 
of  the  history  of  humanity  and  give  it  expression,  has  not 
yet  appeared,  and  will  perhaps  never  appear.  Only  occa- 
sionally do  we  seem  to  see  rational  connections.  This  may 
strengthen  our  faith  that  there  is  a  universal  reason  per- 
vading the  universe,  which  combines  the  elements  of  histori- 
cal life  according  to  an  inner  necessity.  I  said  above  that 
autobiographies  were  usually  biodicies.  If  ever  humanity 
writes  its  autobiography  at  the  end  of  its  days,  replete  though 
it  may  be  with  accounts  of  work  and  struggle,  misery  and 
failure,  it  will,  we  believe,  be  a  biodicy  and  a  theodicy.^ 

Die  Menschheit  selbst  in  ihrem  dunklen  Drange 
War  sich  des  rechten  Weges  wohl  bewusst. 

^  [Williams,  A  Review  of  Evolutionary  Ethics^  Part  II.,  chaps.  VII.,  VIII.  ; 
Mackenzie,  Manual^  Moral  Progress,  chap.  XV.  See  also,  Lessing,  Erziehung 
des  Menschengeschlechts  (Engl.  tr.  in  Bohn's  Library),  and  Kant,  Dos  mag  in  der 
Theorie  richtig  sein.  —  Tr.] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EVIL,  THE  BAD,  AND  THEODICY  i 

1.  Theodicies  are  not  in  favor  in  our  times.  We  derive 
more  pleasure  from  the  analytical  contemplation  of  evil  and 
from  reviling  the  nature  which  produces  it.  Nevertheless,  I 
shall  venture  to  make  the  untimely  attempt  to  justify  the 
evil  in  the  world.  Of  course,  we  cannot  prove  that  the  world 
as  it  exists,  is  absolutely  good,  or  even  that  it  is  the  best  of 
possible  worlds  —  we  do  not  know  much  of  the  absolute  or 
the  possible  ;  but  we  can  endeavor  to  say  what  it  is  for  us. 
And  it  may,  in  my  opinion,  be  shown  that  the  universe,  as 
it  is,  is  essentially  adapted  to  our  nature.  It  supplies  us  with 
appropriate  conditions  of  growth,  furnishes  our  capacities 
with  the  necessary  tasks,  and  gives  to  our  life,  if  only  we 
wish  it,  a  rich  and  beautiful  content.  We  could  not,  being 
what  we  are,  have  any  use  for,  or  tolerate,  a  world  differently 
constituted.  Whoever  regards  this  as  self-evident,  holding 
that  our  nature  no  less  than  the  organism  of  every  animal 
species  is  suited  to  its  environment,  may  dismiss  all  dis- 
cussions concerning  the  evil  as  superfluous.  I  desire  to  add, 
however,  that  the  evil  in  the  world  can  be  justified  only  in  a 
general  way.  It  will  always  be  impossible  to  point  out  the 
teleological  necessity  of  a  particular  evil  in  a  particular  case, 

1  [See  the  writings  of  the  Stoics,  Plotinus,  Augustine  ;  also  Spinoza,  Tractatus 
pditicus ;  Leihniz,  Theodic€e ;  Kant,  Religion  innerhalb  der  Grenzen  der  blosser 
Vernunfl  (First  Part  tr.  in  Abhott),  Tiber  das  Misslingen  aller  philosophtschen 
Versuche  in  der  Theodic^e  ;  J.  Miiller,  Die  Lehre  von  der  SUnde ;  Hiiffding,  Eihik^ 
VI.,  Das  ethisch  Bose;  Runze,  Ethiky  §§  13,  18;  Paulsen,  Introduction  to  Phil* 
osophy,  pp.  262ff.— Tb.] 

21 


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THE  EVIL,  THE  BAD,  AND  THEODICY 


323 


just  as  physics  cannot  explain  the  causal  necessity  of  every 
particular  movement.  But  it  may  be  shown  that  human 
historical  life  with  all  the  truly  valuable  elements  it  contains, 
as  a  rule,  demands  the  very  conditions  under  which  it  actually 
exists.  Take  away  all  evils,  and  you  abolish  life  itself.  Evil 
remains  evil,  none  the  less,  and  bad,  bad,  but  they  are  not  things 
that  ought  absolutely  not  to  be.^  They  must  be,  not  for  their 
own  sake,  however,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  good.  Yet  it  cannot 
be  denied  that,  however  we  may  look  at  the  matter,  our  think- 
ing is  confronted  with  peculiar  difficulties.  We  are,  in  a  meas- 
ure, compelled  to  form  the  notion  of  a  life  that  is  wholly  free 
from  evil,  but  every  attempt  to  give  it  concrete  expression 
fails.  The  kingdom  of  God  and  eternal  blessedness  are  tran- 
scendent concepts. 

2.  It  is  customary  to  distinguish  between  physical  and 
moral  evils.  We  may  subdivide  the  former  according  as 
they  are  caused  by  nature  outside  of  us  or^by  the  nature 
within  us. 


A 


t   ■'! 


To  the  first  class  belong  all  the  things  in  ^nature  which 
oppose  the  needs  and  wishes  of  man  :  the  barrenness  of  the 
soil,  which  condemns  a  people  to  abject  poverty,  extreme  cli- 
matic conditions,  oppressive  heat  or  severe  cold,  which  dwarf 
the  vital  powers ;  also  all  those  unfortunate  accidents  which 
destroy  the  fruits  of  labor  and  endanger  life:  floods  and 
droughts,  which  ruin  the  crops,  lightnings  which  consume 
houses,  earthquakes  which  overturn  cities. 

All  evils  of  this  kind  may  be  embraced  under  a  common 
head :  they  thwart  our  plans  or  purposes.  Let  us  first  con- 
sider the  normal  impediments.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  there 
could  be  no  action  and  purpose  without  them.  All  work,  all 
civilization,  consists  in  overcoming  such  obstacles.  If  the 
fields  yielded  harvests  of  their  own  accord,  if  the  forests  pro- 
duced an  abundance  of  all  fruits,  there  would  be  no  agricul- 

1  [For  the  distinction  made  in  the  German  language  between  evil  and  bad,  see 
Kant,  Practical  Reason,  Bk.  I.,ch.  II.  (Abbott,  pp.  150  f.)— Tb.] 


ture  or  horticulture;  if  the  climate  were  always  absolutely 
suited  to  the  comforts  of  mankind,  there  would  be  no  need  of 
houses  ;  if  tools  of  all  kinds  grew  upon  trees,  or  shoes  fell  from 
heaven  once  a  year,  we  should  need  no  trades,  —  we  should 
be  living  in  Utopia.  What  distinguishes  the  real  world  from 
such  a  dreamland  is  the  obstacles  and  the  labor  made  neces- 
sary by  them.  Now,  no  one  can  doubt  that  our  own  world  is 
more  adapted  to  our  nature,  constituted  as  it  is,  than  Utopia. 
As  for  the  extraordinary  calamities,  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
they  have  the  same  effect :  floods  teach  us  the  art  of  dike- 
building  ;  hailstorms,  the  art  of  insurance ;  earthquakes,  the 
art  of  public  aid.  Of  course,  we  cannot  prove  to  the  indi- 
vidual that  his  misfortune  was  necessary  and  good  for  him  in 
a  particular  case ;  nor  would  the  attempt  to  do  so  meet  with 
a  favorable  response.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  advise  him 
and  help  him  to  make  the  most  of  his  troubles.  And  perhaps 
he  may  at  some  future  time  see  the  evil  in  a  new  light.  An 
evil  that  has  been  overcome  through  one's  own  exertions  and 
with  outside  help  is  not  only  no  longer  an  evil,  but  has  been 
transformed  into  a  genuine  blessing,  upon  which  the  memory 
loves  to  linger.  Who  has  not  at  some  time  or  other  made  the 
discovery  that  time  transforms  evils  into  blessings  ? 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  evils  which  are  peculiar  to 
human  nature,  all  weaknesses  and  infirmities  of  body  and 
soul.  We  can  imagine  a  body  that  is  much  more  capable  of 
resisting  all  kinds  of  harmful  influences,  one  whose  strength 
and  endurance  is  greater,  than  our  own.  We  can  likewise 
imagine  an  intellect  that  far  surpasses  human  intelligence, 
one  that  is  not  forced  to  wrest  every  advance  in  knowledge 
from  error,  prejudice,  and  superstition.  But  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  this  brings  us  to  the  same  conclusion  we  reached  above : 
the  increase  of  power  has  the  same  effect  as  the  decrease  of 
impediments  ;  the  former  would  lead  to  Utopia.  We  prize 
the  products  of  the  soil  because  we  have  acquired  them  by  the 
sweat  of  our  brow.     We  should  not  prize  truth  as  we  do  if  it 


324 


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THE   EVIL,   THE   BAD,   AND   THEODICY 


325 


I  '»i 


were  to  fall  into  our  laps  without  any  effort  on  our  part.  The 
Pater  Seraphicus  at  the  end  of  Faust  speaks  of  his  eyes  as 
"organs  of  the  earthly  sphere."  This  holds  of  our  entire 
nature  ;  it  is  adapted  to  the  universe  and  the  earth,  and  hence 
the  latter  are  adapted  to  our  feelings  and  volitions.  Other 
creatures  may  require  other  organs ;  ours  are  suited  to  our 
tasks.  What  was  said  above  of  accidental  misfortunes  may 
also  be  said  of  those  which  dwarf  our  nature  and  our  powers, 
of  disease  and  infirmity  and  blindness  and  other  organic  de- 
fects. Disease  has  produced  the  art  of  medicine  and  the 
science  of  the  body  and  of  life  ;  it  educates  the  patient  and  his 
surroundings,  it  warns  and  impels  him  to  economize  his  vital 
powers,  it  is  the  great  school  of  patience,  resignation,  tender 
love,  and  mercy,  qualities  which  are  valuable  not  only  in  time 
of  sickness.!  Similarly,  blindness  and  deafness  give  to  man 
new  and  unusually  difficult  problems  to  solve ;  but  they  thereby 
awaken  new  powers  and  invent  new  aids.  An  ingenious 
legend  deprives  Homer  of  the  light  of  his  eyes,  merely  to 
endow  him  with  a  more  brilliant  light.  Nor  can  we  prove  in 
this  case  that  every  evil  is  invariably  necessary  to  develop- 
ment and  education,  but  we  may  say  here  as  before  that  it  is  by 
nature  fitted  for  such  a  purpose,  and  that  it  is  a  good  for  him 
who  turns  it  to  good  account.  At  all  events,  it  is  wise  to  in- 
terpret it  so,  to  regard  evil  as  religious  faith  regards  it,  as  a 
trial  intended  for  our  salvation.  And  we  must  also  learn  from 
faith  the  lesson  of  modesty,  and  not  claim  to  understand  the 
connection  between  evil  and  salvation  in  particular  cases. 
Only  in  a  general  way  can  we  understand  that  evils  are  not 
only  real,  but  necessary,  teleologically  necessary. 

"  The  light  dove  dividing  the  air  in  her  flight  and  feeling 

'  How  much  surgery,  the  care  of  the  sick,  and  the  humane  regard  for  life  owe 
to  the  recent  great  wars,  so  that  we  may  perhaps  say  that  the  lives  of  more 
people  have  heen  saved  through  them  during  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  peace 
than  have  been  lost  in  the  wars,  has  been  shown  by  Dr.  Brinkmann  in  a  beautiful 
essay  in  a  work  published  by  Licentiate  Weber :  Gesrhirhte  der  sittlichm,  relig- 
idsen  und  sozialen  Entwickelung  Deutschlands  in  denletzten  35  Jahren  (1895). 


its  resistance,  might  perhaps  imagine  that  she  could  succeed 
much  better  in  a  vacuum."  Thus  Kant  illustrates  the  neces- 
sity of  the  facts  of  experience  for  the  activity  of  our  under- 
standing. In  the  same  way,  the  will  needs  the  resistance  of 
the  object,  evil :  there  can  be  no  action  without  resistance,  no 
happiness  without  obstacles.  "  Pure  "  happiness,  like  pure 
truth,  exists  for  God  alone.  We  need  the  additional  impetus 
of  ignorance  and  error,  of  opposition  and  evil. 

3.   But  could  not,  and  should  not,  at  least,  moral  evil,  the 
bad,  have  been  left  out  ? 

I  believe  we  must  answer  the  question  in  the  negative,  curi- 
ous though  it  may  sound.  Moral  evil,  too,  is,  in  a  certain 
sense,  teleologically  necessary.  If  it  were  wholly  eliminated, 
human  historical  life  would  lack  an  indispensable  element 
Moral  evil  appears  in  two  fundamental  forms,  as  sensuality 
and  selfishness.  The  former  embraces  all  the  weaknesses  and 
vices  which  result  when  reason  and  morality  surrender  the 
control  of  life  to  particular  sensuous  impulses :  intemperance, 
dissipation,  indolence,  frivolousness,  cowardice.  Selfishness 
is  the  root  of  the  vices  which  threaten  the  welfare  of  the 
surroundings:  avarice,  injustice,  malice,  haughtiness.  We 
cannot  conceive  of  the  possibility  of  exterminating  evil  in 
either  form  without  at  the  same  time  striking  at  the  good. 
The  virtues  of  the  first  class,  prudence,  perseverance,  cour- 
age, all  presuppose  the  existence  of  sensuousness  as  a  medium 
of  resistance.  Without  the  sensuous  man's  fear  of  sensuous 
pain  or  evil,  there  would  be  no  courage,  without  the  stimulus 
of  pleasure,  no  moderation  ;  hence  without  potential  badness, 
no  virtue,  that  is,  no  human  virtue.  The  virtues  of  the  angels 
may  be  of  a  different  type,  but  we  can  form  no  notion  of 
them.  So,  too,  the  social  virtues  presuppose  tlie  natural  self- 
ishness of  the  sensuous  man :  without  this  there  would  be  no 
virtues  of  justice  and  benevolence  in  their  particularly  human 
form ;  they,  too,  possess  an  element  of  self-denial. 

But  not  only  is  the  potential  evil  in  our  own  nature  an  in- 


m  \ 


326 


CONCErXS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE   EVIL,   THE   BAD,   AND   THEODICY 


327 


dispensable  means  of  realizing  the  good,  but  the  actual  evil 
outside  of  us  is  the  same  :  in  battling  against  it  virtue  grows 
strong.  Injustice  arouses  in  the  spectator  or  victim  the  idea 
of  the  right  and  the  sense  of  justice ;  falsehood  and  deceit 
make  truth  and  veracity  valuable ;  cruelty  and  malice  form 
the  foil  for  kindness  and  nobility  of  soul.  In  a  poem  entitled 
My  Teachers^  Robert  Hammerling  brings  out  the  thought  that 
we  first  become  conscious   of   the   true   worth   of   goodness 

through  evil.^ 

All  the  great  heroes  of  humanity  became  what  they  were 
only  by  struggling  with  evil.  The  sentence  and  execution  of 
Socrates  gave  his  life  the  proper  setting.  Jesus  had  to  be 
glorified  by  death.  He  himself  tells  us  so:  "Ought  not 
Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things  and  to  enter  into  his 
glory  ?  "  Nothing  in  this  world  so  moves  the  heart  of  man, 
nothing  has  aroused  greater  reverence  and  has  given  greater 
consolation  to  humanity  than  the  picture  of  the  Crucified  One. 

^  I  quote  a  few  lines  from  the  poem,  which  was  published  in  the  journal 
Deutsche  Dichtung  (1889): 

Von  wem  ich  wahr  sein  lernte  ?    Von  den  Liignern, 

Den  Heuchlern,  Schmeichlern,  Doppelziingigen, 

KlatBchbriidern  und  Skandalgeschichtenjagern, 

Nicht  minder  von  Phantasten,  Phrasendrechslern, 

Schonfarbern,  geckenhaften  Faselhansen. 

Bis  in  den  Grund  der  Seele  so  zuwider 

Ward  mir  die  Unwahrheit  durch  alle  diese, 

Selbst  die  geringste,  dass  ich  hassen  sie 

Und  meiden  lernte  fUr  mein  ganzes  Leben. 

Von  wem  ich  Milde  lernte  ?     Von  den  Splitterrichtem, 

Von  rucksichtslosen  Spottern,  bosen  Zungen, 

Meinungstyrannen  und  Parteiwutrichen. 

Von  wem  ich  lieben  lernte  ?    Von  den  Hassem, 

Von  Egoisten,  Menschenfeinden,  Neidem, 

Von  Seelenmaklem,  Thier-  und  Menschenqualem, 

Vivisektoren,  seelenlosen  Weibern. 

Von  wem  ich  schweigen  lernte  ?     Von  den  Schwatzem ! 

Von  wem  ich  treu  sein  lernte  ?    Von  Flatterseelen ! 

Characterfest?    Von  Wind-  und  Wetterfahnen. 

Habt  Dank,  ihr  meine  Lehrer !  Was  als  Lehrgeld 

Ich  euch  entrichtet,  nicht  zu  theuer  acht'  ich's. 


But  it  cannot  be  presented  without  its  historical  surroundings, 
without  the  Pharisees  and  the  scribes,  without  the  bigoted 
high  priest  and  the  cowardly  procurator,  without  the  fanatical 
mob  and  the  brutal  soldiers ;  these  form  the  foil  for  the  bright 
figure  of  Christ.  The  old  church  hymn  speaks  of  a  happy 
fault,  B.  felix  culpa,  which  gave  us  such  a  Savior. 

Hence,  if  we  eliminate  all  evil  from  history,  we  at  the  same 
time  eliminate  the  conflict  of  the  good  with  the  evil,  and  lose 
the  highest  and  grandest  possession  of  humanity:  moral 
heroism. 

But  not  this  alone ;  we  lose  the  entire  content  of  historical 
life.  All  historical  institutions  are  the  product  of  a  struggle 
between  good  and  evil.  Without  rapacity  and  the  love  of 
war  on  the  part  of  neighbors  there  would  be  no  defensive 
union  ;  without  injustice  and  violence  among  confederates, 
no  legal  order ;  the  original  function  of  the  state  is  to  preserve 
unity  and  order :  it  is  an  armed  union  against  violence  and 
injustice.  Eliminate  these,  let  justice  and  peace,  prudence 
and  benevolence,  become  perfect  on  earth,  and  there  will  be 
no  more  work  for  armies  and  diplomacy,  for  courts  and  police, 
for  governments  and  officials.  The  perfect  state  defeats  itself. 
The  church,  too,  like  the  state,  was  established  as  a  power  for 
good,  to  battle  with  sin.  It,  too,  would  cease  to  exist  if  it 
had  completed  its  work,  if  it  had  entirely  sanctified  humanity: 
without  sin,  no  church,  no  forgiveness  of  sins,  no  ministry,  no 
missions.  On  earth  there  can  be  only  a  militant  church,  the 
church  triumphant  belongs  to  heaven. 

Hence  goodness  can  thrive  and  grow  strong  upon  earth 
only  in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  evil.  We  cannot  even 
imagine  a  history  without  this  antithesis.^ 

But  shall  we,  in  acknowledging  the  teleological  necessity  of 

1  This  is  the  kernel  of  truth  in  Mandeville's  remarkable  reflections,  Private 
Vices  Public  Benejits.  Hasbach  calls  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  man  in 
an  interesting  article  in  Schmoller's  Jahrbuch  (1890),  and  also  points  out  that 
Pierre  Bayle,  the  great  lover  of  truth  and  paradox,  advanced  the  same  fundir 
mental  ideas  before  him. 


328 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


evil,  also  recognize  it  as  one  of  the  legitimate  constituents  of 
reality,  equal  in  value  to  the  rest  ? 

That  is  not  my  meaning.  The  evil  has  no  value  whatever 
as  such,  and  no  claim  to  existence.  It  exists  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  good,  to  enable  it  to  act  and  realize  itself.  We 
have  the  same  relation  here  as  between  light  and  darkness. 
The  painter  cannot  paint  without  employing  shadows :  his 
aim,  however,  is  not  to  paint  shadows,  but  lights  and  colors. 
So,  too,  the  poet  cannot  paint  without  shadows,  he  needs  the 
ugly,  the  vulgar,  and  the  base.  It  is  not  his  purpose,  however, 
to  portray  these,  but  the  beautiful,  the  good,  and  the  grand, 
and  in  order  to  bring  them  out  more  clearly  he  places  the 
base  by  the  side  of  the  good,  to  confound  the  evil  and 
exalt  the  good.  So,  too,  the  good  exists  in  history  and  in  life 
for  its  own  sake,  and  evil  for  the  sake  of  the  good,  as  a  stim- 
ulus, as  an  obstacle,  as  a  foil.  It  is  a  negative  quantity, 
valueless  as  such  ;  it  receives  a  kind  of  power  and  reality 
only  through  its  opposite,  the  good.  But  its  power  does  not 
benefit  it,  for  it  is  characteristic  of  evil  that  it  has  no  con- 
structive force,  because  it  is  divided  against  itself.  It  has,  as 
Kant  once  said,  "  the  quality,  inseparable  from  its  nature,  of 
being  opposed  to  itself  and  self-destructive."  This  is  also 
shown  by  the  fact  that  there  can  be  no  positive  anti-morality  ; 
immorality  is,  like  error,  without  law.  All  truth  forms  a 
unified  system,  but  there  is  no  system  of  errors.  There  is  no 
mark,  says  Epictetus,  for  the  misses. 

Goethe  has  a  similar  conception  of  the  purpose  of  evil  in 
the  world :  it  is  the  principle  of  negation  and  destruction,  the 
nothing  which  constantly  opposes  the  something,  reality. 
But  Mephistopheles  confesses: 

So  viel  als  ich  schon  unternommen, 
Ich  wusste  nieht  ihr  beizukommen.^ 

1  [That  which  to  Naught  is  in  resistance  set,  — 
The  Something  of  tliis  clumsy  world,  —  has  yet. 
With  all  that  I  have  undertaken, 
Not  been  by  me  disturbed  or  shaken. 

—  Bayard  Taylor's  Translation.] 


THE  EVIL,   THE   BAD,   AND   THEODICY 


329 


On  the  contrary  ;  the  spirit  which  invariably  denies,  always 
wills  the  bad  and  always  works  the  good.  And  the  Lord 
expresses  the  same  idea  in  the  Prologue  : 

Des  Menschen  Tbatigkeit  kann  allzu  leicbt  erscblaffen, 

Er  liebt  sich  bald  die  unbedingte  Ruh  ; 

Drum  geb*  ich  gem  ihm  den  Gesellen  zu, 

Der  reizt  und  wirkt  und  muss  als  Teufel  schaffen.^ 

The  inherent  unworthiness  and  failure  of  the  evil  also  mani- 
fests itself  in  self-consciousness :  the  consciousness  of  good- 
ness is  peace  and  joy,  the  consciousness  of  evil  is  discord  and 
unhappiness.  This  is  Mephistopheles'  experience.  From  his 
first  meeting  with  Faust,  in  which  he  bitterly  complains  that 
so  far  everything  has  gone  wrong  with  him,  down  to  the  very 
end  —  man  md'chte  rasend  werden  !  —  to  his  last  appearance  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  second  part,  when  he  feels 

Hiobsartig,  BeuP  an  Beule, 

Der  ganze  Kerl,  dem's  vor  sich  selber  grant 

Und  triumphiert  zugleich,  wenn  er  sich  ganz  durchschaut  —  * 

his  mood  remains  the  same  :  discontent  and  self-derision  are 
the  feelings  which  he  harbors  against  himself.  Whatever  he 
undertakes  —  though  at  first  it  succeeds  admirably  —  finally 
turns  out  against  him.  Both  parts  of  the  poem  end  with  the 
rescue  of  the  soul  already  caught  in  his  meshes.  The  last 
word  uttered  by  him  is: 

Du  bist  getaiischt  in  dcinen  alien  Tagen, 

Du  hast's  verdient,  es  geht  dir  grimmig  schlecht.^ 

Goethe  interprets  the  history  of  mankind  in  his  poem.     The 
memory  of  man  favors  this  interpretation.     History  readjusts 

1  [Man's  active  nature,  flagging,  seeks  too  soon  the  level; 

Unqualified  repose  he  learns  to  crave ; 
Whence,  willingly,  the  comrade  him  I  gave, 
Who  works,  excites,  and  must  create,  as  Devil. 

—  Bayard  Taylor's  translation.] 

2  [Like  Job,  the  boils  have  cleft  me 

From  head  to  foot,  so  that  myself  I  shun  ; 

Yet  triumph  also,  when  my  self -inspection's  done.  —  lb.] 

8  [Tricked  so  in  one's  old  days,  a  great  disgust  is ; 
And  I  deserve  it,  this  infernal  spite.  —  lb.] 


330 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


the  good  and  the  bad,  which  so  often  seem  to  change  places 
in  the   present;  she  exalts  the  good  and  great  which  dur- 
ing life  appeared  in  the  servant's  garb  and  sat  in  the  prisoner's 
dock,  and  proclaims  it  to  all  the  world ;  she  confounds  the 
evil    and    base,  which    once    bestrode    the    world   in   pomp 
and  glory,  and  which  was  proclaimed  so  loudly  by  its  satel- 
lites  as  the  great  and  real,  and  reveals   it  in  all  its   noth- 
ingness.     Thus  she  derives  good  from  evil.     "Ye  thought 
evil   against  me,   but    God   meant   it   unto   good : "    that   is 
the  great  lesson  of  history.      That  is  the   teaching  of  the 
greatest  history  that  was  ever  lived  on  earth,  the  history  of 
Jesus.     There  is   no  more  elevating   and  consoling   history 
than  the  history  of  the  passion.     How  great  Pilate  seemed 
to  himself  when  he  sat  in  judgment  upon  Jesus :  Do  you  not 
see  that  I  have  the  power  to  condemn  you  or  to  set  you 
free  ?     The  poor  mad  fool,  arraigned  before  him  as  the  Jewish 
pretender,  surely  did  not  look   like  a   dangerous  man,  like 
a  man  destined  to  influence  the  history  of  the  world.     Surely, 
there  was  no  need  of  killing  him,  he  would  not  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  Roman  Empire.     But,  Pilate  might  have  been 
saying,  it  is  a  very  provoking  affair.     If  I  turn  him  loose,  I 
shall  have  this  band  of  fanatical  priests  with  their  troublesome 
complaints  at  my  back ;  the  hounds  will  not  lose  the  scent  of 
the  game.    And,  after  all,  what  difference  does  it  make  whether 
the  fool  lives  a  day  more  or  less  ?    Therefore  take  him  away 
and  put  an  end  to  this  business ;  I  don't  want  to  be  annoyed 
with   it   again.  —  And   now  how    the   roles   have  changed ! 
Long  ago  Pilate  would  have  been  consigned  to  the  great  sea 
of  oblivion  which  had  engulfed  so  many  procurators  and  high 
priests  before  him,  had  not  his  name  attached  itself  to  the 
memory  of  the  man  whom  he  nailed  to  the  cross :  the  his- 
tory of  this  crucifixion  cannot  be  told  without  the  name  of 
Pilate.     And  so  the  story  of  the  sentence  pronounced  upon 
Jesus  by  this  easy-going  procurator,  who  was,  without  doubt, 
anxious    to   please    his   superiors   and  at  the  same  time  to 


THE  EVIL,  THE  BAD,  AND  THEODICY 


331 


be  popular  with  the  masses  and  if  possible  also  to  be  a 
just  man,  will  be  told  as  long  as  historical  memory  lasts 
upon  this  earth ;  and  so,  too,  the  story  will  be  told,  till 
the  crack  of  doom,  of  the  extremely  cautious  high  priest, 
who  succeeded  so  admirably  in  proving  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion and  that  of  the  worthy  college  of  counsellors  that  it  was 
better  for  one  man  to  die  than  that  a  whole  nation  should 
perish.  The  story  will  be  told,  not  because  of  any  merit  on 
the  part  of  these  men,  and  not  to  their  credit,  but  in  order 
to  impress  it  strongly  upon  all  high  priests  and  procurators 
of  justice  in  all  the  corners  of  the  earth  that  their  judg- 
ment is  not  the  final  judgment  upon  the  value  of  men  and 
things ;  and  conversely,  in  order  to  give  to  all  those  accused 
and  condemned  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  justice  the  con- 
soling certainty  that  their  cause  will  be  decided  before  a  still 
higher  tribunal  than  that  of  their  present  judges.^ 

So  moral  evil  is  constantly  annihilated  in  the  memories 
which  mankind  preserves  of  its  life;  it  is  degraded  to  the 
rank  of  the  worthless  and  non-existent,  serving  merely  as  a 
foil  for  something  else. 

Would  it  be  foolish  to  imagine  that  this  memory  is  a  frag- 
ment of  an  absolute  divine  memory,  and  that  the  true  reality 
of  spiritual  things  consists  in  their  existing  in  such  an  eternal 
consciousness,  and  not  in  their  being  parts  of  a  passing, 
temporal  consciousness  of  individuals? — and  that  the  good 
alone  constitutes  the  real  in  the  absolute  consciousness,  while 
the  evil  appears  merely  as  the  non-existent,  just  as  darkness 
is  not  a  reality  as  compared  with  the  light,  but  merely  its 
negation  ? 

1  Thomas  Carlyle,  the  great  poet-historian,  develops  this  thought  in  all  his 
historical  dramas.  Whatever  is  real,  true,  and  just  is  honored  hy  history,  not 
merely  by  written,  but  by  actual  history ;  while  falsehood  and  selfishness  and 
vanity  are  consigned  to  the  nothingness  to  which  they  belong.  The  universe 
itself  constantly  strives  to  do  away  with  the  worthless  institutions  which  have  no 
more  vitality ;  a  monarchy  or  an  aristocracy  that  no  longer  labors  but  merely 
enjoys,  is  cast  off.  Only  that  which  labors  is  real ;  that  which  does  not  laboJ 
does  not  deserve  to  be  real. 


332 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  EVIL,   THE  BAD,   AND  THEODICY 


333 


This  conception  reminds  us  of  an  old  remark  which  Augus- 
tine, following  Aristotle,  addressed  to  the  Manichaeans  :  "  The 
evil  has  no  real  essence,  but  the  loss  or  the  absence  of  the 
good  has  received  the  name  of  evil."^  Both  Spinoza  and 
Leibniz  are  of  the  same  opinion.  Perfection  and  reality  alone 
are  in  God.  We  make  a  distinction  between  good  and  evil 
simply  because  our  way  of  looking  at  things  is  inadequate; 
we  simply  judge  the  world  by  its  relation  to  a  peripheral 
point,  that  is,  to  ourselves.  Everything  is  necessary  and 
perfect  in  relation  to  the  unity  of  reality,  that  is,  God.  — 
True,  it  must  be  added,  we  continue  to  be  peripheral  points 
and  cannot  get  away  from  ourselves.  But  we  can  understand 
that  such  is  the  case,  that  our  conception  of  things  is  no 
more  absolute  in  these  matters  than  in  others.  And  we 
shall  at  all  events  adhere  to  the  view  that  evil  is  not  on 
a  par  with  reality  and  does  not  possess  the  force  of  a 
negative  quantity  over  and  against  reality.  Hence,  we  can- 
not by  adding  up  the  good  and  evil  prove  that  the  world 
is  worthless. 

4.  Does  this  conception  of  the  nature  and  import  of  evil 
make  us  quietistic  ?  It  has  been  charged  that  it  does.  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  charge  is  well  founded.  Our  conception 
does  not  encourage  a  man  to  fold  his  hands,  to  recognize  the  evil 
as  inevitable,  and  to  give  it  free  scope,  but  rather  incites  him 
to  combat  it  and  overcome  it  wlierever  he  finds  it ;  —  indeed, 
its  sole  purpose  in  the  world  is  to  be  antagonized  and  over- 
come. Only  in  this  way  can  its  existence  be  justified,  not  by 
letting  it  alone.  An  evil  that  is  given  full  sway  misses  its 
mark.  A  disease  that  fails  to  stimulate  the  science  of  medi- 
cine, that  is  not  employed  as  a  means  of  exercising  patience 
and  benevolence  ;  poverty  which  is  stolidly  borne  ;  falsehood 
which  is  not  opposed  by  the  truth ;  wickedness  which  is  not 
confounded,  which  is  not  overcome  by  the  good  with  good- 
ness, —  all  these  are  really  evils.     You  make  evils  of  them, 

1  De  Civ.  Dei,  XL.,  9. 


you  who  ought  to  turn  them  to  good,  but  surrender  to  them 
instead,  and  give  them  free  scope. 

But,  it  is  said,  if  evil  will  abide  with  us,  and,  in  a  certain 
measure,  must  abide  with  us  so  long  as  the  earth  stands 
and  humanity  has  historical  problems  to  solve,  will  not  the 
struggle  be  a  futile  one  ?  Of  what  use  is  it  to  strike  off  a  few 
heads  from  Hydra  if  new  ones  are  constantly  to  take  their 
place  ?  Will  not  those  who  understand  the  nature  of  evil 
necessarily  grow  tired  of  the  game,  and  resign  themselves  to 
fate  ? 

My  answer  is  :  The  impulse  to  combat  evil  does  not  spring 
from  a  conception  of  a  perfect  state  to  be  realized  by  the  con- 
flict, but  from  the  feeling  aroused  by  the  pressure  of  the 
particular  evil  at  hand.  The  general  belief  that  the  satisfac- 
tion of  every  need,  the  removal  of  every  evil,  will  invariably 
be  followed  by  new  ones  will  neither  hinder  action  nor  weaken 
its  effects.  Even  if  we  should  be  convinced  that  want  and 
misery,  injustice  and  falsehood,  will  exist  world  without  end, 
we  shall  not  cease  combating  them  wherever  they  show 
themselves.  And  this  is  as  it  should  be ;  the  struggle  can 
never  be  absolutely  ineffectual.  One  result  is  bound  to  follow 
under  all  circumstances :  our  antagonism  places  us  in  the 
ranks  of  those  who  are  fighting  for  the  good  and  the  right. 
The  immediate  and  real  purpose  of  every  human  being  is  not 
to  obtain  happiness  and  perfection  for  the  human  race,  but  to 
live  his  own  life  worthily,  and  this  end  he  can  realize  under 
all  conditions.  "  The  important  thing  to  the  man  of  action  is 
that  he  do  the  right ;  whether  the  right  is  done  or  not  need 
not  concern  him."  ^  Whoever  is  guided  by  these  thoughts  will 
realize  something  besides.  Whoever  weakly  succumbs  to  evil 
as  to  something  that  cannot  be  overcome,  will  surely  be  over- 
come by  it;  inaction  is  followed  by  discouragement  and 
weariness.  So  soon,  however,  as  a  man  begins  to  defend  him- 
self, he  becomes  conscious  of  his  own  activity  and  strength, 

1  Goethe,  SprUche  in  Prosa,  99. 


T 


334 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE   EVIL,   THE   BAD,  AND   THEODICY 


335 


^ 


i 


and  feels  that  the  evil  which  he  is  attacking  recedes.  The 
satisfaction  thus  experienced  bj  him  is  not  destroyed  bj  the 
thought  that  another  evil  may  take  the  place  of  the  van- 
quished one.  Let  the  coming  generations  cope  with  the  un- 
known evils  in  store  for  them  as  best  they  may.  That  is  not 
our  concern ;  sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. 

Only  in  a  certain  sense  will  our  conception  make  us,  not 
quietistic,  but  calm  and  patient.  It  makes  us  hopeful  of  the 
final  outcome ;  the  good  will  conquer,  for  it  is  God's  cause,  it 
is  the  only  true  reality.  And  it  softens  our  anger,  it  trans- 
forms it  into  the  deepest  pity.  If  the  evil-doers  were  really 
and  ultimately  successful  in  the  world,  it  would  be  difficult  or 
impossible  to  tolerate  them  or  to  forgive  them.  But  the  evil 
does  not  benefit  itself ;  nay,  it  benefits  the  good,  it  serves 
as  a  means  to  its  perfection,  in  spite  of  itself.  Jesus  does  not 
part  from  the  world  with  a  curse  upon  his  lips,  but  with  a 
prayer :  Forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.  They 
will  not  accomplish  what  they  desire,  my  death ;  but  they  are 
working  for  what  they  do  not  desire  ;  the  curse  will  fall  upon 
them  ;  not  my  curse,  but  the  consequences  of  their  own  deeds, 
as  the  eternal  order  of  things  demands.  "  It  must  needs  be 
that  offences  come ;  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence 
Cometh." 

So,  too,  the  great  poet  lets  his  good  characters  depart  from 
the  world  without  hatred  and  bitterness,  after  they  have  suf- 
fered the  deepest  and  most  cruel  wrongs :  Cordelia  and  Des- 
demona  die  in  peace,  without  hatred.  Thus  they  overcome 
evil  with  good,  the  evil  has  no  power  over  them,  it  cannot 
destroy  their  inner  peace,  it  is  a  means  of  testing  and  purify- 
ing them;  the  evil  defeats  itself  and  is  annihilated. 

The  proper  use,  therefore,  which  we  should  make  of  evil 
and  wickedness  is  this  :  we  should  antagonize  it  honestly  and 
energetically,  and  make  it  a  means  of  our  own  perfection  and, 
so  far  as  we  can,  of  that  of  others. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  also  be  put  to  a  false  use.     We 


may  either  endure  it  stolidly  and  ill-humoredly  and  permit  it 
to  conquer  us,  or  we  may  exercise  our  wits  in  contemplating 
and  analyzing  it.  The  latter  was  Hamlet's  art,  and  the  cause 
of  his  ruin. 

5.  I  wish  to  add  a  few  words  concerning  an  experience 
which  we  naturally  regard  as  the  greatest  of  all  evils,  death. 
Individuals  die,  nations  die,  humanity  will  die.  Does  not 
this  seem  like  a  judgment  in  which  reality  pronounces  upon 
the  vanity  and  nothingness  of  life? 

That  is  a  false  view  in  my  opinion.  It  is  true  that  death  at 
first  sight  seems  to  be  an  external  necessity  for  the  indi- 
vidual. But  it  is  not  hard  to  convince  ourselves  that  its 
necessity  is  not  an  external,  but  an  inner,  teleological  neces- 
sity. A  saying  of  Goethe's  is  often  quoted :  "  Death  is  an 
artifice  of  nature  to  have  much  life."  It  is  certainly  the  arti- 
fice which  nature  employs  to  have  historical  life.  Without 
change  of  generations,  there  would  be  no  history.  Immortal 
men  would  lead  an  unhistorical  life,  a  life  of  whose  contents 
no  mind  could  form  a  picture.  Moreover,  without  the  relation 
of  parents  and  children  the  virtues  would  be  lacking  which 
give  human  life  its  greatest  value :  love,  care,  reverence, 
piety.  Hence,  whoever  desires  life,  historical  human  life, 
also  desires  its  condition,  death. 

Furthermore,  a  human  life  is  not  infinite  in  its  nature ;  it 
exhausts  its  powers  and  its  contents.  Every  action,  so 
physiology  and  psychology  tell  us,  leaves  behind  it  a  tendency 
to  repetition.  Thus  arise  fixed  habits  of  thought  and  action, 
the  conditions  of  efficient  activity.  But  the  same  principle 
that  leads  to  evolution  also  leads  to  involution,  and  at  last 
produces  torpor.  The  will  and  the  understanding  gradually 
lose  the  flexibility  which  they  must  have  to  adapt  themselves 
to  the  ever-changing  problems  and  conditions.  The  old  man 
at  last  completely  loses  the  faculty  of  receiving  new  impres- 
sions from  the  external  world,  and,  with  it,  the  power  to  act 
upon  them.    He  becomes  a  stranger  in  the  world ;  he  has  lived 


336 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  EVIL,  THE  BAD,  AND  THEODICY 


837 


himself  out  of  it,  so  to  speak ;  his  exit  is  the  last  necessary 
step  in  a  long  journey.  A  timely  death  is  not  to  be  inter- 
preted as  the  overthrow  of  life  by  an  external  force,  but  as 
its  inner  necessary  conclusion.  So  it  is  regarded  by  the 
friends  of  the  dying  man,  and  not  infrequently  also  by 
the  dying  man  himself.  After  the  completion  of  his  life 
he  desires  to  be  gathered  to  his  fathers ;  he  parts  from  life 
with  thanks  to  its  giver.  If  such  a  death  were  the  rule,  no 
one  would  call  it  an  evil,  neither  the  survivors  nor  the  dying 
man.  He  has  realized  his  desires,  and  that  for  which  he 
lived  abides;  —  his  descendants,  his  nation,  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good ;  everything  for  which  he  lived,  abides. 
It  is  different  when  death  cuts  off  a  life  before  its  time,  be- 
fore it  is  completed,  perhaps  even  before  it  has  begun. 
Here  we  stand  as  before  an  insoluble  riddle.  An  epidemic 
breaks  out  in  a  town  ;  like  a  blind  fate  it  steals  through  the 
multitude,  attacking  now  this  person,  now  that  one,  as 
chance  decrees.  Even  the  most  cocksure  interpreters  of  the 
ways  of  Providence  are  in  the  habit  of  confessing  here  that 
God's  counsels  are  inscrutable.  Indeed,  it  would  evidently  be 
presumptuous  for  the  human  mind  to  attempt  to  understand 
the  teleological  necessity  of  the  particular  cases.  Here 
humble  resignation  alone  is  fitting.  And  it  is  possible.  For 
no  one  knows  what  might  have  been  in  store  for  him  who, 
as  we  say,  dies  before  his  time.  Many  a  man  would  have 
been  esteemed  happy  if  an  early  death  had  spared  him  from 
outliving  what  was  the  joy  of  his  life.  As  may  be  gathered 
from  Solon's  remark,  a  beautiful  death  in  the  bloom  of  youth 
was  not  regarded  by  the  Greeks  as  necessarily  a  misfortune. 
And  the  teleological  necessity  of  the  universal  law  that  death 
does  not  merely  take  away  the  old  and  decrepit,  but  also 
cuts  down  youth  in  the  full  power  and  enjoyment  of  life, 
may  also  be  explained  in  another  way.  The  Greek  sage. 
Bias  of  Priene,  is  said  to  have  uttered  the  following  wise 
remark :  "  So  seek  to  live  as  though  you  were  fated  to  live  a 


long  and  a  short  time."^  The  thought  which  this  maxim 
wishes  to  convey  is  this :  You  do  not  know  when  the  end  will 
come,  hence  arrange  your  life  so  that  you  may  cheerfully  die 
to-morrow,  and  also  so  that  you  may  have  the  strength  and  the 
courage  for  a  long  life.  To  be  prepared  is  everything ;  you 
ought  to  be  ready  for  life  as  well  as  for  death.  If  you  are, 
you  will  believe  what  the  hymn  says,  that  the  best  time  for 
dying  is  God's  time. 

When  the  individual  dies  he  is  uplifted  by  the  thought  that 
his  life  and  its  achievements  will  benefit  those  who  come 
after  him;  he  himself  is  perpetuated  in  the  life  of  his 
descendants  and  people.  But  suppose  we  are  forced  to  assume 
that  our  people,  too,  will  die ;  yes,  that  the  time  will  come 
when  there  shall  be  no  more  life  on  the  earth  ?  Does  not  this 
break  down  the  last  support,  the  last  prop,  as  it  were,  upon 
which  all  values  are  based  ?  And  it  seems  hardly  possible  to 
escape  the  thought.  That  the  peoples  repeat  the  stages  of  life 
passed  through  by  the  individual,  on  a  larger  scale,  or  rather, 
that  the  individual  repeats  the  evolution  of  the  race  on  a 
small  scale,  is  a  fact  which  forces  itself  upon  us.  History 
shows  us  that  nations,  too,  grow  old  and  stand  still.  The 
stock  of  fixed  habits  of  thought  and  action,  traditional  con- 
ceptions, institutions,  rights  and  customs,  gradually  increases. 
Tradition  robs  us  of  the  power  and  courage  to  act  upon  the 
world;  the  past  weighs  heavily  upon  the  present.  The  ina- 
bility to  adapt  themselves  to  new  conditions  causes  the  death 
of  historical  institutions,  although  the  individuals  may,  say 
by  receiving  new  blood  into  their  veins,  perpetuate  themselves 
and  be  employed  with  the  elements  of  the  old  civilization,  to 
form  a  new  historical  being.  It  is  true,  history  does  not 
show  us  that  the  same  thing  will  happen  to  humanity  as  a 
whole  —  namely,  that  it  will  exhaust  itself;  but  that,  indeed, 

^  I  find  the  quotation  in  one  of  the  able  addresses  of  Franz  Kern,  Schulreden 
bet  der  Entlassung  von  Abiturienten,  2d  ed.,  1887  :  oSru  veipw  ^v  q>5  koI  o\(yov  koL 
iroAuv  XP^^°^  /3i«<rJ/4€j/os.     [See  Diog.  Laertius,  Book  I.  —  Tr.] 


338 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE   EVIL,   THE   BAD,   AND   THEODICY 


339 


has  it  hardly  begun  to  live  as  a  self-conscious  whole.  Anal- 
ogy, however,  suggests  this  thought,  while  physical  reflections 
also  seem  to  lead  us  to  it.  A  world-body,  too,  a  stellar  sys- 
tem experiences  something  like  birth,  growth,  and  death. 
It  arises  through  separation  from  a  mother  body,  it  develops, 
ripens,  produces  thousands  of  living  forms;  then  grows  old 
and  dies.  The  whole  earth  with  all  the  living  forms  upon  it, 
humanity  included,  undergoes  this  process. 

Would  these  thoughts,  if  they  were  inevitable,  prove  the 
worthlessness  of  humanity  and  all  life  ?    Does  the  transitori- 
ness  of  the  world  prove  its  nothingness  ?    I  do  not  believe  it. 
ThfiJlower  blooms  but  for  a  moment,  and  we  havejio  faultjbp 
find.     A  drama,  a  tone^poem,  has  an  end ;  we  do  not  believe 
that  lessens  its  value.     A  finite  thing  cannot  extend  its  real- 
ity into  infinity,  so  to  speak.    The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
life  of  a  man.     It  will  also  hold  of  the  life  of  a  people,  nay, 
of  the  life  of  humanity ;  its  essence,  too,  is  finite  and  is  ex- 
hausted by  a  finite  evolution.     Everything  finite   is  perish- 
able;  God  alone,  the  Infinite  One,  fills  all  times  with  His 
presence.  —  But  would  not  the  destruction  of  humanity  mean 
the  destruction  of  all  goods  and  values?    For  what,  then, 
have  the  untold  generations  labored,  battled,  and  suffered  ? — 
Well,   surely   not  for  a  final   generation,  for  one  that   is 
not  to  appear  until  the  end  of  things.     If  the  life  of  a  gen- 
eration has  no  value  in  itself,  if  its  relation  to  its  immedi- 
ate ancestors  and  descendants  cannot  make  it  valuable,  then 
its  relation  to  those  most  remote  successors  cannot  give  it 
worth.     The   value   of   our   science  and   philosophy,  of   our 
art  and  poetry,  depends  upon  what  they  do  for  us ;  it  is  ex- 
tremely doubtful  whether  a  remote  future  will  have  any  use 
for  them.     Scholastic  philosophy  has  passed  away;  we  no 
longer  prize  it.     That  is  no  argument  against  its  value.     If 
it  made  the  generations  who  lived  in  the  second  half  of  the 
Middle  Ages  wiser  and  more  prudent,  if,  besides,  it  prepared 
the  forces  which  were  capable  of  rising  above  it,  it  did  every- 


thing that  could  be  expected,  and  it  was  perfectly  proper 
for  it  to  die  after  having  completed  its  work ;  no  philosophy 
has  eternal  value.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  poetry  and 
art,  of  states  and  laws.  Nothing  that  is  earthly  is  imper- 
ishable, nor  is  its  value  dependent  upon  its  imperishability. 
Life  is,  as  a  whole  as  well  as  in  part,  an  end  in  itself. 

Or  are  we  afraid  that  death  will  destroy  life  and  its  con- 
tents by  hurling  it  into  the  'past^  and  hence  into  nothingness  ? 
But  it  is  n't  death  that  does  this ;  the  passing  of  time  does 
it  at  every  moment.  Every  moment  of  life  passes  over  into 
the  past ;  it  is  destroyed,  if  going  into  the  past  is  equivalent 
to  annihilation.  If  the  past  life  is  nothing,  death  does  not 
have  to  destroy  it.  If,  however,  it  is  not  destroyed  and  anni- 
hilated by  being  past,  if  it  still  has  reality  and  significance, 
death  can  no  longer  destroy  it.  For  death  has  no  power  to 
react;  nay,  it  is  nothing  but  cessation,  the  absence  of  con- 
tinuance. Or  is  the  past  really  worthless  and  nothing,  is 
only  that  real  which  exists  now,  has  only  that  part  of  myself 
and  my  life  reality  which  is  in  my  consciousness  at  the  pres- 
ent moment?  If  you  think  so,  beware  lest  reality  dissolve 
before  your  very  eyes.  The  moment  has  no  breadth,  it  is  a 
point  in  which  no  life  can  be  extended.  Life  can  exist  only 
in  a  process  of  time  which  includes  the  past  and  the  future, 
not  in  a  moment  of  the  present.  If  to  be  past  in  life  means 
to  be  unreal,  then  life  cannot  possibly  ever  be  a  reality.  But 
we  shall  return  to  this  subject  in  a  later  discussion.^ 

1  Chapter  VIH.  [See  Fechner,  Zend-Avesta  and  Das  Buchlein  vom  Leben 
nach  dem  Tode.  —  Tr.J 


CHAPTER  V 


DUTY  AND   CONSCIENCE! 


1.  The  Origin  of  the  Feeling  of  Duty,  In  the  preceding 
chapters  we  reached  the  conclusion:  That  is  good  which 
satisfies  the  will,  or  toward  which  it  is  by  nature  directed. 
We  found  that  the  will  aims  at  the  preservation  and  perfection 
of  individual  and  social  life.  With  this  view  the  results  of 
our  analysis  of  the  judgments  of  value  which  are  expressed 
in  language  agreed:  Such  human  acts  and  qualities  arc 
called  good  as  have  the  tendency  to  promote  the  welfare  of 
the  agent  and  his  surroundings. 

Here,  however,  we  seem  to  be  confronted  with  a  contradic- 
tion :  Good,  we  may  also  say  in  conformity  with  popular 
usage,  is  not  to  do  what  we  will  to  do,  but  what  we  ought  to 
do.  To  do  good  means  to  do  our  duty^  and  our  duty  does 
not  seem  to  coincide  with  the  natural  will ;  hence  there  is  a 

1  [For  explanations  of  conscience,  see :  —  Rational  intuitionists :  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen ;  Cudworth ;  Clarke ;  Kant ;  Fichte ;  Janet,  Theory  of  Morals,  Vtk. 
Ill,,  chap.  I. ;  Calderwood,  Handbook,  Part  I.,  chaps.  I.-VI.  Emotional  intuition- 
ists :  Shaftesbury  ;  Hutcheson ;  Hume ;  A.  Smith  ;  Rousseau ;  Herbart ;  Breutauo, 
Vom  Ur sprung  sittUcher  Erkenntniss ;  Schwarz,  GrnndzUge  der  Ethik,  Percep- 
tional intuitionists :  Butler,  Sermons  on  Human  Nature  ;  Martineau,  TjipeSy  vol, 
II. ;  Lecky,  chap.  I.  Empiricists  :  Hobbes  ;  Locke ;  Paley ;  Bentham ;  James 
Mill ;  John  Stuart  Mill ;  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  The  Emotions,  chap. 
XV.,  The  Will,  chap.  X.,  also  Mental  and  Moral  Science.  Evolutionists  :  Darwin, 
Descent  of  Man,  chap,  IV, ;  Herbert  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics,  §§  44  ff..  Induc- 
tions of  Ethics,  Social  Statics ;  Stephen,  Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  311  £f. ;  Ho  ff  ding, 
Ethik,  IV. ;  Jhering,  vol.  II.,  pp.  95  ff ;  Wundt,  Ethik,  Part  III.,  ch.  I.,  4,  pp. 
480  ff , ;  Ree,  Die  Entstehung  des  Gewissens ;  Miinsterberg,  Ursprung  der  Sittlichkeit ; 
Simmel,  Einleitung  in  die  Moralwissenschaft,  vol,  I.,  chap,  I. ;  Baldwin,  Social 
Interpretations,  —  See  also  Hyslop,  pp.  250-348 ;  Gass,  Die  Lehre  vom  Gewissen, 
—  Tr.] 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


341 


conflict  between  duty  and  inclination.  Before  the  act,  the 
feeling  of  duty  opposes  the  inclination :  it  acts  as  a  deterrent ; 
after  the  act,  if  the  inclination  has  triumphed  against  the 
feeling  of  duty,  it  condemns :  it  was  bad  to  do  what  the 
inclination  characterized  as  good.  We  call  that  phase  of 
our  nature  which  opposes  inclination  and  manifests  itself  in 
the  feeling  of  obligation  and  duty,  conscience,^ 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  phenomenon,  and  how  can 
we  resolve  the  antinomy  :  That  is  good  which  I  will,  and  that 
is  good  which  I  ought  to  do  ?  Or  is  our  entire  previous 
conception  false  ?  Is  the  truly  moral  good,  after  all,  abso- 
lutely different  from  the  other  good,  the  end  of  the  natural 
will,  and  only  like  it  in  name  ? 

An  examination  of  the  origin  of  the  feeling  of  duty  will 
assist  us  in  answering  this  question. 

How  does  obligation  arise  in  the  willing  being  ?  Whence 
this  conflict  between  natural  inclination  and  duty  ?  Is  it 
something  supernatural,  something  breaking  into  the  unity 
of  the  willing  being  from  without  ?  According  to  the 
religious  view  it  is :  for  it,  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God. 

This  notion  contains  a  germ  of  truth,  but  it  has  no  value 
as  an  explanation.  We  have  no  more  right  to  appeal  to  God 
as  the  cause  in  morals  than  in  physics.  Both  the  natural 
law  and  the  moral  law  may  point  to  something  beyond  them, 
to  something  transcendent.  But  we  cannot  assume  the 
transcendent  in  order  to  deduce  from  it  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence ;  we  must  seek  for  the  explanation  within  the  empirical 
world ;  and  I  believe  that  we  can  find  it  there. 

Darwin  attempts  such  an  explanation  in  the  fourth  chapter 
of  his  Descent  of  Man,  He  refers  to  the  traces  of  similar 
processes  among  animals,     A  female  dog  is  with  her  puppies ; 


1  [For  the  psychology  of  conscience  see  especially :  Sully,  The  Human  Mind, 
vol.  II.,  pp.  155  ff. ;  Baldwin,  Feeling  and  Will,  pp.  205  ff. ;  Hoffding,  Psychology, 
VI.,  8, 9  ;  Ladd,  Descriptive  Psychology,  pp.  579  ff, ;  Jodl,  Lehrbuch  der  Psychologic, 
pp,  7I5ff,  —  Tr.] 


342 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


343 


I! 


.'I 


she  sees  her  master  getting  ready  for  the  chase ;  she  hesi- 
tates for  a  while  and  finally  slinks  away  to  them.  Upon 
the  return  of  her  master  she  meets  him  with  all  the  signs 
of  shame;  she  feels  remorse  for  having  proved  unfaith- 
ful to  him.  A  struggle  may  often  be  observed  in  domestic 
animals  between  different  instincts,  or  between  an  instinct 
and  some  habitual  disposition.  Here  we  have,  Darwin 
believes,  the  phenomenon  in  its  most  primitive  form;  it 
is  the  result  of  a  conflict  between  an  acquired  habit  of 
the  will  and  an  original  natural  impulse.  The  feeling 
of  inner  compulsion  to  obey  the  acquired  habit  instead 
of  the  natural  impulse  is  the  feeling  of  duty  in  its  most 
primitive  form;  the  feeling  of  discomfort  and  shame  which 
arises  after  the  original  natural  impulse  has  been  satisfied  in 
spite  of  this  opposition,  is  the  most  primitive  form  of  re- 
morse. We  might,  therefore,  define  the  latter  as  the  reaction 
of  a  persistent  social  or  artificial  instinct  against  the  gratifi- 
cation of  an  original  impulse,  which,  though  not  permanent, 
is  for  the  time  very  powerful.  The  condition  of  its  appear- 
ance is  a  memory  sufficiently  developed  to  retain  vivid 
impressions  of  past  acts.  Now,  these  feelings  necessarily 
become  especially  intense  in  man.  His  memory  retains  the 
past  longer  and  more  faithfully,  while  his  will  is  permanently 
and  powerfully  determined  by  customs,  which,  to  a  large 
extent,  emancipate  his  conduct  from  temporary  impulses. 

The  objection  is  urged :  This  cannot  explain  the  authorita- 
tive character  which  belongs  to  the  human  feeling  of  duty.^ 
The  peculiar  compulsion  characteristic  of  obligation  does 
not  spring  from  the  impulsive  nature  of  the  individual ;  re- 
actions of  conscience  are  totally  different  from  the  feelings 
aroused  by  the  non-satisfaction  of  impulses. ^  Duty  opposes 
the  individual  will  with  an  authority  which  cannot  be 
derived  from  the  natural  impulses. 

1  [See,  for  example,  Schurman,  Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism,  ch&p.  V.  —  Tk.] 
a  [Martineau,  vol.  II.  p.  419  £f.  — Tk.J 


I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  impossible  to  explain  this  fact  on 
the  evolutionistic  hypothesis.  The  authority  of  duty  springs 
from  the  relation  of  the  will  to  custom  (^Sitte),  or,  what 
amounts  to  the  same,  of  the  individual  to  society. 

By  the  term  custom  (^Sitte)  I  mean  the  acts  performed  by 
all  the  members  of  a  tribe,  which  correspond  to  the  instincts 
of  animals.  The  actions  of  animals  are  governed  by  three 
principles :  impulse,  instinct,  and  individual  experience. 
Impulse  regulates  the  vegetative-animal  functions  —  nutrition, 
respiration,  reproduction.  The  term  instinct  is  applied  to 
uniform  modes  of  behavior  which  solve  more  complicated  prob- 
lems of  animal  life,  like  nest-building,  migration,  etc. ;  such 
as  are  acquired  by  the  species  in  the  course  of  its  life,  trans- 
mitted to  individuals  by  heredity,  and  practised  by  them 
without  knowledge  of  their  purposiveness.  They  have  been 
characterized  as  the  organic  intelligence  of  the  species.^  In 
addition  to  these,  the  animal  also  acquires  a  small  measure 
of  individual  intelligence  through  its  own  experience. 

The  same  three  principles  again  meet  us  in  man.  The 
instincts  undergo  the  most  peculiar  transformation,  —  they 
appear  as  customs.  The  latter  resemble  the  instincts  in  that 
they  are  stereotyped  modes  of  conduct  for  the  teleological 
solution  of  complicated  life-problems,  as  well  as  in  that  they 
are  followed  without  a  knowledge  of  their  purposiveness : 
they  represent  the  intelligence  of  the  race,  in  which  the 
individual  participates.  But  they  differ  from  instinct :  the 
individual  knows  of  them ;  in  obeying  them,  however,  he  is  not 
conscious  of  their  purposiveness,  but  of  their  existence  and 
obligation.  He  insists  upon  their  observance  by  others  as  well 
as  by  himself,  formulating  them  into  those  universal  rules 
which  begin  with  a  "  thou  shalt"  or  a  "  thou  shalt  not."  We 
may  therefore  define  customs  as  instincts  that  have  become 
conscious  of  themselves.     The  difference  is  that  customs  are 

1  [For  the  psychology  of  instinct,  impulse,  etc.,  eee  Ladd,  James,  Baldwin, 
Sully,  Hiiffding,  etc.  —  Tb.] 


344 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


345 


!i 


not,  like  instincts,  inherited  organically  as  natural  charac- 
teristics, but  transmitted  by  conscious  activity^  through  educa- 
tion. Moreover,  customs  are  upheld  by  the  conscious  action  of 
the  community  :  an  animal  that  does  not  obey  its  instincts  is 
left  to  suffer  the  natural  consequences  of  its  behavior ;  a 
man  who  acts  contrary  to  custom  causes  a  reaction  in  his 
surroundings,  which  may  assume  many  forms,  all  the  way  from 
a  scarcely  perceptible  form  of  disapproval  to  extermination.^ 
Let  us  take  an  example.  Among  many  higher  animals  the 
sexual  function  is  governed  by  a  peculiar  instinct.  Their 
intercourse  is  not  promiscuous,  but  one  male  lives  with 
one  or  more  females,  at  least  during  the  breeding  season, 
jealously  excluding  other  males.  This  habit  is  noticed  in 
anthropoid  apes,  among  others ;  they  are  either  monogamous  or 
polygamous,  each  family  living  separately,  or  several  families 
living  associated  in  a  body ;  but  under  all  circumstances  the 
male  jealously  excludes  all  rivals.^  Hence,  instinct  regulates 
the  function  of  reproduction  so  as  to  hinder  promiscuous 
intercourse  as  much  as  possible ;  an  arrangement  which 
doubtless  tends  to  preserve  life.  —  In  man  we  find  the  same 
thing  in  the  custom  of  monogamous  and  polygamous  marriage. 
The  custom  is  impressed  upon  the  succeeding  generation  by 
education,  particularly  upon  the  female ;  it  is  established  in 
the  individual  by  the  virtues  of  modesty  and  chastity. 
Whatever  offends  against  these  is  kept  out  of  reach,  and 
every  open  breach  of  propriety  is  frowned  upon  as  abominable 
and  detestable.  The  social  environment  continues  the  process 
of  education  :  deviations  from  the  rules  of  chastity  are  severely 
censured,  especially  in  women  and  by  women ;  the  disapproval 
of  the  surroundings  is  shown  by  the  change  in  their  attitude 
towards  the  offenders.      In  case  the  custom  itself  is  violated. 


*  Wundt  also  compares  instinct  with  custom,  Ethik,  pp.  88  £f.  [Eng.  trans, 
pp.  127  ff.].  See  also  in  the  same  place  interesting  discussions  on  the  relation  be- 
tween custom  and  law,  usage,  habit,  fashion,  and  worship. 

2  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man.,  ch.  XX. 


a  stronger  reaction  ensues ;  the  unmarried  woman  is  excluded 
from  marriage,  and  a  man  who  marries  her  and  thereby  abro- 
gates the  punishment  is  himself  punished  with  contempt.  In 
case,  however,  the  offender  is  a  married  woman,  custom 
demands  the  punishment  of  each  of  the  guilty  parties,  the 
punishment    being     especially    severe     among    polygamous 

nations. 

We  may,  perhaps,  find  a  similar  basis  for  other  customs  in 
natural  instincts.  Thus,  for  example,  the  custom  upon  which 
the  oldest  legal  codes  were  universally  based,  the  custom  pro- 
hibiting the  killing,  assault,  or  robbery  of  a  member  of  the 
same  tribe,  may  have  sprung  from  the  instinct  which  hinders 
the  individuals  of  a  herd  from  attacking  each  other.  The 
relation  of  authority  and  obedience,  which  reaches  its  highest 
perfection  in  the  state,  is  also  present,  in  germ,  in  the  animal 
herd. 

We  can  now  understand  why  duty  does  not  appear  to  be 
rooted  in  the  will  of  the  individual,  but  seems  to  be  some- 
thing external  to  him,  something  opposing  him  with  absolute 
authority.  Custom  forms  the  original  content  of  duty.  In  the 
higher  stages  of  development  the  relation  between  duty  and 
custom  changes ;  duty  gradually  assumes  a  more  personal 
and  individual  character  ;  a  point  to  which  I  shall  return 
later  on.  But,  originally,  duty  enjoined  a  life  in  accordance 
with  custom.  Popular  usage  follows  the  old  conception  when  it 
calls  dutiful  behavior  sittlieh  (customary ;  moral),  undutiful 
conduct,  unsittlich.  Hence  we  may  say:  Duty  is  invested 
with  the  authority  of  custom.  In  it  the  will  of  parents  and 
educators,  the  will  of  ancestors,  the  will  of  the  people,  speak 
to  the  individual  will.  To  these  highest  human  authorities, 
a  still  higher  and  final  authority,  the  authority  of  the  gods,  is 
universally  added.  The  gods,  who  are  made  in  the  image  of 
man,  admit  into  their  nature  the  will  of  the  people  that 
creates  them.  As  religion  develops,  they  uniformly  become 
the  guardians  of  custom  and  law.     This  triple  authority  of 


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I 


parents,  people,  and  gods,  reveals  itself  in  the  sense  of  duty : 
it  is  a  feeling  of  obligation  to  a  higher  will,  which  sets  a 
limit  to  the  inclinations.  To  be  sure,  this  higher  will  is  not 
supra-powerful,  like  one  governing  by  force  or  fear;  it  is 
acknowledged  internally  by  the  individual  will  as  one  having 
absolute  right  to  command,  as  one  which  must,  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, be  obeyed,  even  where  it  has  not  the  power  to 

compel.^ 

2.  Relation  between  Duty  and  Inclination,  We  return  to  the 
question  raised  at  the  outset.  What  is  the  relation  between 
the  good  in  the  sense  of  the  dutiful,  and  the  good  as 
something  which  agrees  with  our  inclinations  and  promotes 

welfare  ? 

In  the  light  of  our  previous  discussions,  we  may  now  say : 
The  two  conceptions  of  the  good  are  harmonized  in  the  inter- 
mediate notion  of  custom  (Sitte).  Customs  are,  like  in- 
stincts, to  which  they  were  found  to  be  analogous,  purposive 
modes  of  behavior  for  solving  the  various  problems  of  life. 
They  conduce  to  the  preservation  of  the  social  whole  which 
creates  them,  and  to  the  normal  development  of  the  individ- 
uals of  whom  the  whole  consists.  In  so  far  as  duty 
requires  the  individual  to  regulate  his  acts  according  to  cus- 
tom, dutiful  conduct  will  tend  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the 
individual  and  his  surroundings.  And  inasmuch  as  the  will 
of  every  individual  primarily  aims  at  this  end,  the  will  ulti- 
mately aims  at  what  duty  demands.  Inclination  and  custom, 
the  individual  will  and  the  social  will,  tend,  on  the  whole,  to 
determine  conduct  in  the  same  way.  —  Thus,  to  come  back  to 
our  example,  custom  demands  that  sexual  life  conform  to 
monogamous  or  polygamous  marriage.  In  reality,  the  will  of 
the  individual  naturally  aims  at  the  same  thing ;  only  in  ex- 
ceptional cases  do  our  inclinations  deviate  from  the  normal. 
Custom  prohibits  the  individual  from  killing,  robbing,  or 

1  [For  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  view  advanced  in  this  paragraph,  see 
Spencer  and  Bain.  —  Tr.] 


injuring  his  fellows.  In  the  last  analysis,  the  will  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  also  opposed  to  this  ;  he  desires  the  life  and  welfare 
of  his  tribe,  he  also  desires  to  live  in  peace  and  friendship  with 
the  members  of  his  tribe.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the  ancient 
phrase  :  Man  is  by  nature  an  animal  sociale  ;  only  in  rare,  ex- 
ceptional cases  is  injury  done  to  a  member  of  the  tribe, 
namely,  when  the  individual  will  cannot  gain  a  particular  pri- 
vate end  in  any  other  way.  Custom  as  such  aims  at  the 
preservation  and  welfare  of  the  collective  body.  Fixed,  well- 
regulated  domestic  relations,  inner  peace  and  security,  are  ap- 
parently essential  conditions  of  the  welfare  of  a  community  as 
such.  If  a  tribe  or  people  were  wholly  without  them,  or  if  de- 
viations from  them  were  the  rule,  the  tribe  would  necessarily 
succumb,  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  to  neighboring  tribes 
having  a  firmly  established  moral  order.  But  the  welfare 
of  the  community  includes  the  welfare  of  the  individuals, 
indeed  the  community  does  not  exist  apart  from  its  mem- 
bers. Hence  we  may  also  say  that  custom  aims  at  the  pres- 
ervation and  welfare  of  the  individual.  And  in  so  far  as 
the  individual  desires  the  preservation  and  welfare  of  his  own 
life,  he  desires  exactly  what  custom  desires.  Indeed  he  can- 
not realize  his  welfare  except  as  custom  prescribes,  —  on 
the  one  hand,  because  this  is  the  most  appropriate  means 
of  solving  a  particular  problem  of  life,  on  the  other,  because 
departures  from  custom  would  produce  a  conflict  between 
him  and  the  whole,  which  would  necessarily  react  unfavor- 
ably upon  his  individual  welfare.  Hence  custom  and  the 
individual  will,  duty  and  inclination,  really  affect  conduct  in 
the  same  way.  Conflicts  between  the  two  are  accidental  and 
exceptional. 

What  a  firm  hold  custom  has  upon  the  will  of  the  individ- 
ual may  be  noticed  when  a  custom  is  violated.  All  the  mem- 
bers of  the  community  at  once  rise  in  its  defence ;  they  must 
consequently  desire  the  stability  and  supremacy  of  custom. 
Only  in  occasional  isolated  cases  does  the  individual  desire  an 


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349 


m 


m 
m 


exception  to  be  made  in  his  favor.  A  custom  obeyed  by  no 
one  and  supported  by  no  one  would  no  longer  be  a  custom. 
The  law  of  custom  is  therefore  also  a  natural  law  in  the  sense 
that  the  formula  is  an  expression  of  actual,  universal  occur- 
rences, and  not  merely  of  pure  obligation. 

But  how  does  it  happen  that  duty  and  inclination  oppose 
each  other  in  consciousness,  if  not  uniformly,  at  least  fre- 
quently ?  —  I  believe  this  may  be  explained  as  follows  :  The 
individual  becomes  clearly  conscious  of  custom  only  when  his 
inclinations  are  directed  towards  something  contrary  to  cus- 
tom. So  long  as  they  conform  to  custom,  conscience  has 
nothing  to  say  to  him ;  silence  gives  consent.  Conjugal  affec- 
tion is  not  felt  as  a  duty,  but  when  the  impulse  takes  a  differ- 
ent direction,  custom  arises  in  consciousness  and  declares  that 
the  satisfaction  of  such  impulses  is  contrary  to  duty.  The 
inclination  to  marry  is  not  felt  as  a  duty ;  only  in  case  the 
impulses  no  longer  tend  in  the  direction  of  matrimony,  as 
happened  during  the  decline  of  the  ancient  nations,  is  mar- 
riage regarded  as  a  duty  by  the  community,  and  felt  to  be 
such  by  the  individual.  We  do  not  speak  of  the  duty  of  liv- 
ing, because  the  will  naturally  aims  at  life.  But  whenever  a 
man  feels  an  inclination  to  abandon  life,  he  becomes  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  suicide  is  immoral,  and  that  it  is  a  duty  to 
live.  We  do  not  look  upon  the  satisfaction  of  hunger  as  a 
duty,  but  if  it  is  a  duty  to  live,  it  surely  must  be  a  duty  to 
satisfy  hunger.  So  long  as  we  satisfy  our  hunger  according 
to  custom  and  usage,  the  voice  of  duty  is  silent,  but  when  we 
feel  inclined  to  violate  custom,  it  appears  in  consciousness, 
say  for  example,  as  a  prohibition  against  excess  or  a  parti- 
cular kind  of  food.  So,  too,  we  feel  it  to  be  our  duty  to 
acquire  and  preserve  property  only  when  the  natural  impulse 
to  acquire  and  possess  is  absent ;  as  a  rule,  we  regard  it  as  a 
duty  merely  to  limit  the  impulse  ;  hence  the  command :  Thou 
shalt  not  steal,  cheat,  be  avaricious,  greedy,  or  extravagant. 
We  do  not  feel  that  it  is  our  duty  to  speak ;  inclination  impels 


us  to  do  it ;  it  is  a  duty  to  limit  the  desire ;  hence  the  com- 
mand :  Thou  shalt  not  be  garrulous  and  indiscreet,  thou  shalt 
not  lie.  —  It  may  therefore  be  said  that  duty  uniformly  arises 
as  a  limitation  of  impulses,  whose  existence  it  presupposes ; 
without  impulses  there  would  be  no  duty.  It  is  in  its 
origin  essentially  negative:  Thou  shalt  not  is  the  formula 
with  which  custom,  law,  duty,  originally  oppose  the  indi- 
vidual when  his  impulses  go  too  far.  The  positive  formula 
does  not  read :  Thou  shalt,  but :  I  will.  Only  when  the  natural 
impulse  or  will  is  lacking  does  the  formula  of  duty  make 
its  appearance,  and  change  the  :  I  will,  into  the  :  Thou 
shalt. 

Hence  a  contradiction  between  duty  and  inclination  is  to 
be  explained  as  an  exception.  The  commands  of  duty  or  the 
moral  laws  are  formulae  expressing  the  nature  and  direc- 
tion of  the  real  will  of  a  community,  which,  as  a  rule,  mani- 
fests itself  in  all  the  members  of  the  same.  It  is  no  more 
strange  that  there  should  be  exceptions  in  these  rules  than  in 
physiology ;  they  are  empirical  laws  of  exceedingly  com- 
plicated phenomena.  There  are  blind  men  and  deaf  men,  and 
yet  it  is  the  rule  that  men  have  sight,  hearing,  and  speech. 
Similarly,  the  existence  of  adultery,  theft,  and  falsehood  docs 
not  do  away  with  the  rule  that  men  live  in  permanent  families, 
possess  property,  and  give  expression  to  their  inner  states  in 
speech.  When  we  look  at  a  people  as  a  whole,  the  matter  be- 
comes perfectly  plain  :  obligation  and  will  coincide,  the  people 
wills  its  customs  and  laws,  for  these  are  not  imposed  from 
without ;  —  they  are  the  expressions  of  the  nation's  particular 
will.  Will  and  obligation  do  not  entirely  coincide  in  the  in- 
dividual ;  there  are  cases  in  which  he  wills  what  he  ought  not 
to  do,  and  conversely  :  then  he  looks  upon  the  law  as  some- 
thing outside  of  him,  as  something  limiting  his  will.  Generally 
speaking,  however,  he  too  wills  what  custom  wills,  and  is  always 
ready  to  assist  in  hindering  deviations  on  the  part  of  others,  if 
not  in  deed  at  least  in  word  and  thought. 


!W 


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m 


3.  Critique  of  the  Kantian  View,^  According  to  Kant  the 
conflict  between  inclination  and  the  feeling  of  duty  is  essen- 
tial to  morality.  An  act,  in  his  opinion,  has  moral  worth, 
only  when  the  feeling  of  duty  determines  the  will,  in  the  absence 
of  all  inclinations  or  in  spite  of  them.  Hence  he  does  not  re- 
gard it  as  meritorious  to  do  good  from  inclination.  The  Vicar 
of  Wakefield  confessed  that  nothing  gave  him  greater  pleasure 
than  to  make  people  happy ;  and  that  he  was  not  unsuccessful  in 
his  efforts  his  friends  are  well  aware.  But,  according  to  Kant, 
the  moralist  would  have  to  say  that  "  an  action  of  this  kind, 
however  proper,  however  amiable  it  may  be,  has  nevertheless 
no  true  moral  worth,  but  is  on  a  level  with  other  inclinations. 
.  .  .  For  the  maxim  lacks  the  moral  import ;  namely,  that 
such  actions  be  done  from  duty,  not  from  inclination.  Put 
the  case  that  the  mind  of  that  philanthropist  were  clouded  by 
sorrow  of  his  own,  extinguishing  all  sympathy  with  the  lot  of 
others,  and  that  while  he  still  has  the  power  to  benefit  others 
in  distress,  he  is  not  touched  by  their  trouble  because  he  is 
absorbed  with  his  own  ;  and  now  suppose  that  he  tears  him- 
self out  of  this  dead  insensibility,  and  performs  the  action 
without  any  inclination  to  it,  but  simply  from  duty,  then  first 
has  his  action  its  genuine  moral  worth."  ^  The  same  is  true 
of  the  preservation  of  one's  own  life  and  the  promotion  of 
one's  own  happiness :  "  The  anxious  care  which  most  men 
take  for  it  has  no  intrinsic  worth."  "  On  the  other  hand,  if 
adversity  and  hopeless  sorrow  have  completely  taken  away 
the  relish  for  life ;  if  the  unfortunate  one,  strong  in  mind, 
indignant  at  his  fate  rather  than  desponding  or  dejected, 
wishes  for  death,  and  yet  preserves  his  life  without  loving 
it  —  not  from  inclination  or  fear,  but  from  duty  —  then  his 
maxim  has  a  moral  worth."  * 

1  [Janet,  Thetrry  of  Morals^  Book  III.,  chap.  V. ;  Mackenzie,  Manual,  chap. 
IV.,  §§  8  £f. ;  Muirhead,  Elements,  §  56 ;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies,  Essay  IV.  —  Tr.] 

2  Grundlegung  znr  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  Hartenstein's  edition,  IV.,  p.  246. 
[Abbott's  translation,  Kant's  Theory  of  Ethics,  p.  14.] 

*  Ibidem, 


This  view  of  Kant's  called  forth  the  ridicule  of  Schiller's 
well-known  lines.  A  pupil  of  the  critical  ethics  reveals  to  the 
master  his  scruples  of  conscience  : 

"  Gem  dien^  ich  den  Freunden,  doch  thu*  ich  es  leider  mit  Neigung, 
Und  so  wurmt  es  mich  oft,  dass  ich  nicht  tugendhaft  bin."  ^ 

Whereupon  he  receives  the  following  advice : 

"  Da  ist  kein  andrer  Rath,  du  musst*  suchen  sie  zu  verachten, 
Und  mit  Abscheu  alsdann  thun,  was  die  Pflicht  dir  gebeut."  * 

This  ridicule,  we  must  confess,  is  not  undeserved.  Accord- 
ing to  Kant's  theory,  a  man's  worth  depends  entirely  upon  his 
ability  to  eliminate  inclinations  and  impulses  from  his  will, 
and  to  determine  it  solely  by  the  feeling  of  duty.  Such  a 
human  being,  doing  his  duty  solely  for  duty's  sake,  is  the 
most  wooden  mannikin  ever  constructed  by  a  system-builder. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  a  germ  of  truth  in  the  view.  The  con- 
flict between  duty  and  inclination  is  not  the  rule,  and  the 
suppression  of  inclination  by  the  feeling  of  duty  is  not  the 
condition  of  all  moral  worth.  Still  we  may  say  that  the  true 
moral  character  is  plainly  revealed  in  such  a  conflict.  When 
a  rich  man  finds  a  purse  on  the  street  and  restores  it  to  its 
lawful  owner,  we  look  upon  his  conduct  as  perfectly  natural, 
without  regarding  it  as  an  evidence  of  remarkable  honesty. 
The  man  is  perhaps  on  his  way  to  the  stock  exchange,  where 
he  may,  by  skilfully  manipulating  the  market,  deprive  a  fellow- 
speculator  of  his  entire  fortune  without  feeling  the  slightest 
compunction.  When,  however,  a  poor  man  finds  himself  in 
a  similar  position,  and,  actuated  by  the  feeling  of  duty  to 
return  the  money,  resists  his  desire  to  appropriate  what  is 
not  his,  we  recognize  this  as  a  strong  proof  of  his  honesty, 
nay  of  his  morality.     So  it  is  everywhere :  where  there  has 

1  [Gladly  I  serve  my  friends,  but,  alas !  I  do  it  from  inclination,  hence  I  am 
plagued  with  the  doubt  that  I  am  not  virtuous.  —  See  Schiller's  distich-group. 
Die  Philosophen.  —  Tr.] 

*  [Your  only  resource  is  to  try  to  despise  them,  and  then  to  do  with  aversion 
that  which  duty  enjoins  upon  you.] 


352 


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f^R 


Hi 


never  been  a  conflict  between  inclination  and  duty,  where  the 
will  has  never  had  an  opportunity  of  deciding  against  incli- 
nation and  for  duty,  the  character  has  not  been  tested.  We 
have  no  assurance  of  moral  trustworthiness  until  the  will  has 
shown  itself  proof  against  temptation. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  shall  not  concede  that  a  will  which 
always  naturally  inclines  to  the  right,  is  on  that  account  less 
worthy  than  one  which  has  had  to  battle  for  its  rectitude 
against  an  unwilling  or  dangerous  temperament.  Kant  leans 
to  this  view.  "  If  nature,"  we  read  in  the  same  place,  "  has 
put  little  sympathy  in  the  heart  of  this  or  that  man :  if 
he,  supposed  to  be  an  upright  man,  is  by  temperament  cold  and 
indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  others,  perhaps  because  in 
respect  of  his  own  he  is  provided  with  the  special  gift  of  pa- 
tience and  fortitude,  and  supposes,  or  even  requires,  that 
others  should  have  the  same  —  and  such  a  man  would  cer- 
tainly not  be  the  meanest  product  of  nature  —  but  if  nature 
had  not  specially  framed  him  for  a  philanthropist,  would  he  not 
still  find  in  himself  a  source  from  whence  to  give  himself  a/ar 
higher  worth  than  that  of  a  good-natured  temperament  could  be  ? 
Unquestionably.  It  is  just  in  this  that  the  moral  worth  of  the 
character  is  brought  out  which  is  incomparahly  the  highest  of  ally 
namely,  that  he  is  beneficent,  not  from  inclination  but  from 
duty."  ^  Such  a  man  would  certainly  be  an  estimable  man, 
much  more  so  than  an  effeminate,  will-less  person,  who  yielded 
to  tlie  promptings  of  a  compassionate  heart ;  it  does  not  seem 
improbable  to  me  that  Kant  was  thinking  of  himself  when  he 
drew  this  picture  ;  nevertheless  such  a  character  would  not  be 
the  highest  and  most  perfect  type  of  human  nature  imaginable. 
An  angel  from  heaven  would,  according  to  the  Kantian  for- 
mula, necessarily  lack  the  moral  worth  "which  is  incom- 
parably the  highest  of  all,"  in  so  far  as  his  "  temperament " 
would  not  be  in  need  of  and  capable  of  being  improved  by 
the  will.     And  yet  who  would  reproach  him  for  this  defect  ? 

1  [Abbott's  translation,  pp.  14-15.] 


In  the  poem  Bas  G-l'ack  Schiller  contrasts  two  persons :  the 
one  has,  through  his  own  exertions,  made  an  honest  man  of 
himself,  while  the  other  has  been  endowed  by  the  gods  with 
a  beautiful  and  noble  nature.  He  calls  the  latter  happy,  and 
assigns  to  him  the  higher  rank  in  the  moral  order : 

Vor  Unwiirdigem  kann  dieh  der  Wille,  der  ernste,  bewahren, 
Alles  Hochste,  es  kommt  frei  von  den  Gottern  herab.i 

He  expresses  the  same  idea  in  a  similar  poem  :  Der  Grenius : 

Muss  ich  dem  Trieb  misstraun,  der  leise  mich  warnt,  dem  Gesetze, 

Das  du  selber,  Natur,  mir  in  den  Busen  gepragt, 

Bis  auf  die  ewige  Schrift  die  SchuP  ihr  Siegel  gedriicket, 

Und  der  Formel  Gef ass  bindet  den  fliichtigen  Geist  ?  * 

He  answers  the  question :       - 

Hast  du,  Glucklicher,  nie  den  schiitzenden  Engel  verloren, 
Nie  des  f rommen  Instincts  liebende  Warnung  verwirkt : 
O  dann  gehe  du  hin  in  deiner  kostlichen  Unschuld ! 
Dich  kann  die  Wissenschaft  nichts  lehren,  sie  lerne  von  dir ! 
Jenes  Gesetz,  das  mit  ehernem  Stab  den  Straubenden  lenket, 
Dir  nicht  gilt's.     Was  du  thust,  was  dir  gefallt,  ist  Gesetz.* 

Indeed,  Kant,  and  Fichte  still  more,  exaggerate  the  role 
which  the  consciousness  of  duty  is  destined  to  play  in  life. 
Not  only  is  it  not  true  that  we  are  impelled  at  every  step  we 
take  by  the  consciousness  of  duty,  but  we  cannot  even  regard 
this  as  a  fault.  It  is  neither  conceivable  nor  desirable  that  the 
natural  impulses  should  be  replaced  by  the  "  respect  for  the 
moral  law  "  as  the  sole  motive  of  the  will.     The  moral  phil- 

1  [The  will,  the  serious  will,  can  guard  thee  against  unworthy  things ;  but  every- 
thing great  is  freely  bestowed  by  the  gods.] 

2  [Must  I  distrust  the  impulse  which  silently  warns  me,  the  law  which  thou 
thyself,  Nature,  hast  written  upon  my  heart,  until  the  school  has  set  its  seal 
upon  the  eternal  impress,  and  the  rigid  formula  binds  the  soaring  spirit  ?] 

8  [If  thou  hast  never,  thou  blessed  one,  lost  thy  guardian  angel,  and  hast  never 
suppressed  the  loving  warning  of  the  pious  instinct ;  O  then  go  on  in  thy  precious 
innocence!  Science  can  teach  thee  nothing,  nay,  let  her  learn  from  thee! 
That  law,  which  with  an  iron  rod  rules  the  resisting  ones,  is  not  meant  for 
thee.    What  thou  dost,  what  pleases  thee,  is  law.] 

23 


354 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


osophers,  to  be  sure,  are  all  inclined  to  regard  that  as  the 
most  perfect  state  in  which  the  action  of  the  will  is  solely  de- 
termined by  the  idea  of  duty.  Spinoza's  sage  is  governed 
wholly  by  the  dictates  of  reason  (ex  dictamine  rationis  ducitur)^ 
the  impulses  no  longer  influence  his  conduct ;  and  the  wise 
man  of  Bentham  or  Mill  does  not  essentially  differ  from  him. 
Indeed,  they  are  both  modelled  after  the  Stoic  and  Epicurean 
sage.  In  the  real  world,  the  reason  or  the  idea  of  duty  does 
not  play  so  important  a  part.  It  is  a  necessary  regulator  of 
the  natural  impulses,  but  it  cannot  replace  them ;  the  im- 
pulses are  the  weights,  so  to  speak,  which  keep  the  clockwork 
of  life  in  motion  ;  the  reason  cannot  take  their  place,  it  has 
no  motive  force  of  its  own. 

Kant  is  here  still  entangled  in  the  notions  of  the  old  ration- 
alism, whose  power,  it  must  be  confessed,  he  did  so  much  to 
break.  In  the  following  period,  nature  again  received  her  duo, 
the  fundamental  conception  being  that  the  highest  and  best  is 
not  invented  by  the  reason  and  made  according  to  conscious 
rule,  but  is  the  result  of  an  unconscious  growth.  This  holds 
true  of  the  good  no  less  than  of  the  beautiful ;  the  beautiful 
is  not  thought  out  and  produced  by  rational  reflection,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  aesthetics,  any  more  than  the  good  and 
perfect  is  planned  and  manufactured  according  to  the  rules  of 
ethics.  The  true  work  of  art  is  unconsciously  conceived 
and  produced  by  the  genius ;  aesthetics  does  not  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  process.  So,  too,  the  moral  genius,  "  the 
beautiful  soul,"  safely  guided  by  instinct,  lives  a  good  and 
beautiful  life,  without  constantly  reflecting  upon  the  moral 
law.  The  rules  of  aesthetics  and  ethics  possess  no  inherent 
motive  power.  It  is  their  province  to  guard  against  trans- 
gressions ;  they  are  not  productive,  but  restrictive.  And  it 
is  by  no  means  necessary  that  the  rule  be  present  in  con- 
sciousness during  the  production  of  the  work  of  art  or  moral 
act,  or  even  occupy  the  centre  of  attention ;  this  would  impede 
and  disturb  the   process  of  organic   growth.     It  is   a  well- 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


355 


known  fact  that  when  we  begin  to  reflect  upon  rules  of 
spelling  in  writing,  we  become  confused  and  uncertain.  The 
easiest  way  to  answer  a  question  in  orthography  is  to  write 
the  word  mechanically.  Similarly,  many  a  man  decides  a 
moral  question  better  and  with  greater  certainty  by  perform- 
ing the  act  than  by  reflecting  upon  it.     As  Goethe  says : 

All  unser  redlichstes  Bemiilin 

Gliickt  nur  im  unbewussten  Momente.  ^ 

Hence  the  unbiassed  mind  will  not  make  the  moral  worth 
of  a  man  dependent  upon  whether  he  thinks  much  of  duty  and 
is  conscious  of  it  as  a  motive.  The  designedly-moral  character 
is  apt  to  possess  something  of  that  "  intentionality  "  which 
makes  such  an  unfavorable  impression  upon  us,  when  com- 
pared with  the  natural  disposition.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  descriptions  which  are  given  of  Kant's  life  are  absolutely 
faithful,  whether  Kant  really  was  such  a  living  clockwork, 
having  duty  as  the  mainspring ;  but  I  must  confess  that  these 
descriptions  have  never  pleased  me.  The  feeling  of  duty 
may  have  prevented  much  evil  in  the  world,  but  the  beautiful 
and  the  good  have  never  sprung  from  the  feeling  of  duty,  but 
from  the  living  impulses  of  the  heart. 

The  creative  artists  are  all  familiar  with  this  thought ;  it  is 
constantly  emphasized  by  the  poets,  by  Goethe  and  Schiller, 
as  well  as  by  Riickert : 

Mein  Herz,  sieh  an  den  Baum  in  seiner  Blutenpracht ; 
Es  wird  ihm  gar  nicht  schwer,  was  ihn  so  herrlich  macht 
Aus  seinem  Innern  scheint,  er  braucht  sieh  nieht  zu  zwinffen, 
Ein  Strom  von  Lust  und  Licht  und  Liebe  zu  entspringen, 
Mit  Miihe  ringt  er  nieht,  das  Einzle  zu  gebaren, 
Das  Ganze  lebt  und  wirkt,  er  lasset  es  gewiihren, 
Du  solltest  deine  Pflicht,  wie  er  die  seine,  thun, 
Dann  warest  du  so  licht,  und  bist  so  triibe  nun. 

4.  Let  me  add  a  remark  concerning  a  few  other  errors  of 
the  a-prioristic-intuitionalistic  moral  philosophy.     It  asserts 

1  [All  our  best  endeavors  succeed  only  in  the  unconscious  moment. — Tr  J 


356 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


357 


.!i 


that  the  laws  of  duty  are  axiomatic  formulae,  which  are  recog- 
nized with  immediate  and  intuitive  certainty,  like  tlie  mathe- 
matical axioms.  The  propositions :  Just  and  honest  action  is 
good,  Lying  and  cheating  is  bad,  are  accepted  as  absolutely 
true  as  soon  as  they  are  understood.  It  is  neither  necessary 
nor  possible  to  prove  their  validity. 

We  shall  have  to  concede  that  the  moral  laws  are  im- 
mediately and  universally  recognized  as  valid  propositions. 
They  are  nothing  but  the  positive  or  negative  expressions  of/ 
custom,  and  every  member  of  the  community  is  conscious  of 
custom,  if  he  has  any  part  in  the  life  of  the  community.  He 
knows  of  custom  {Sitte)  through  the  countless  particular  judg- 
ments by  which  others  and  he  himself  have  approved  and  dis- 
approved of  acts  ;  the  certainty  with  which  he  immediately 
decides  in  individual  cases  depends  upon  practice.  He  also 
knows  of  custom  through  universal  formulae  ;  commandments 
and  prohibitions  have  been  impressed  upon  him  from  child- 
hood up ;  and  Schopenhauer  says,  not  without  reason,  that 
truths  which  we  do  not  remember  having  learned  are  regarded 
as  innate.  Moreover,  language  has  incorporated  moral  judg- 
ments into  the  meaning  of  the  words  which  designate  modes 
of  conduct:  the  terms  falsehood  and  avarice  express  disap- 
proval, just  as  frankness  and  frugality  express  approval. 
Hence  the  proposition :  Falsehood  is  bad,  is  an  "  analytic  " 
judgment  which  is  formed  a  priori.  Finally,  it  is  no  less  cer- 
tain that  the  moral  laws  arise  in  consciousness  as  "  categorical 
imperatives  " :  they  do  not  counsel  us  to  promote  individual 
or  universal  happiness,  but  appear  as  absolute  commands  and 
prohibitions.  So  far,  therefore,  intuitional  ethics  asserts  facts 
which  cannot  be  doubted.  But  it  is  in  error  when  it  goes  on 
to  claim  that  these  imperatives  are  objectively  groundless,  and 
that  the  sole  business  of  ethics  consists  in  systematizing  the 
particular  commandments  and  prohibitions,  and  perhaps  in 
subsuming  them  under  a  universal  principle,  say  for  example, 
their  fitness  to  become  universal  law.     There  is  unquestion- 


ably an  objective  ground  for  the  existence  and  validity  of  the 
moral  laws,  which  appear  in  consciousness  in  the  form  of  ab- 
solute commands  and  prohibitions ;  their  observance  is  the 
condition  of  the  welfare  of  the  individual  and  the  species. 
And  it  is  the  business  of  moral  philosophy  to  discover  this 
ground,  just  as  it  is  the  business  of  a  philosophy  of  law  to  ex- 
plain the  raison  d'etre  of  law,  that  is,  to  prove  its  teleological 
necessity  by  indicating  the  problems  of  human  collective  life 
which  it  solves.  Inventories  and  codifications  will  never 
make  a  science,  least  of  all  a  philosophical  science. 

Another  error  to  which  intuitional  ethics  inclines  is  the 
error  that  conscience  invariably  reveals  to  everybody,  with 
subjective  certainty  and  objective  infallibility ^  what  duty  de- 
mands. Thus  Kant  contends  that  "  the  commonest  intelli- 
gence can  easily  and  without  hesitation  see  "  what  the  moral 
law  requires  to  be  done ;  or, "  what  duty  is,  is  plain  of  itself  to 
every  one ;  but  what  is  to  bring  true  durable  advantage,  such 
as  will  extend  to  the  whole  of  one's  existence,  is  always  veiled 
in  impenetrable  obscurity."  ^ 

The  latter  statement  is  certainly  true;  but  it  is  as  cer- 
tainly not  true  that  no  one  is  ever  in  doubt  as  to  what  duty 
demands.  In  many  cases,  of  course,  our  duty  seems  perfectly 
clear  immediately,  but  by  no  means  in  all. 

An  official  of  an  insurance  company,  in  violation  of  the 
rules  of  his  corporation,  shows  partiality  to  an  insurer,  and 
receives  compensation  for  his  act.  That  is  theft,  says  con- 
science. He  does  the  same  thing,  to  please  a  colleague,  or 
because  of  his  friendship  for  a  neighbor,  but  without  gain 
to  himself.  That  is  contrary  to  duty,  says  his  conscience, 
you  are  employed  to  use  your  best  endeavors  to  promote  the 
interests  of  the  company  and  to  protect  it  against  loss.  But 
let  us  again  change  the  conditions,  let  us  say  that  the  insured 
has  fulfilled   all  his   obligations  to   the   company,  but  has 

1  See  Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  Book  I.,  ch.  I.,  §  8,  Remark  II.,  Abbott's 
traDslation,  p.  120. 


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CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


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359 


overlooked  a  trifling,  purely  technical  detail,  and  that  this 
oversight  legally  releases  the  company  from  its  obligations. 
Let  us  imagine  that,  upon  the  day  of  payment,  the  official  acci- 
dentally discovers  the  mistake.  He  knows  that  the  company 
can  refuse  payment.  But  he  also  knows  that,  unless  the 
payment  is  made,  the  insured  or  his  heirs  will  suffer  extreme 
hardships.  The  company,  however,  is  paying  a  dividend  of 
eighty  per  cent.  What  shall  he  do  ?  Has  he  the  right  to 
overlook  the  mistake  ?  Or  shall  he  appeal  to  the  company's 
sense  of  justice  ?  As  though  he  did  not  know  that  corpora- 
tions have  no  souls !  His  conscience  does  not  tell  him  what 
to  do.  —  Can  a  Kantian  with  his  magic  formula :  Act  as  if  the 
maxim  of  thy  action  were  to  become  by  thy  will  a  universal 
law  of  nature,  reach  an  unambiguous  conclusion? 

It  is  undoubtedly  contrary  to  duty  to  gain  possession  of  my 
neighbor's  property  by  burglary  or  theft.  But  there  are  other 
means :  he  is  in  trouble,  and  I  can  lend  him  money,  and  I 
can  by  skilful  operations  get  hold  of  his  property  in  a  lawful 
way.  That  is  usury,  says  conscience.  But  to  another  man's 
conscience  it  may  seem  perfectly  proper:  what  is  not  pro- 
hibited is  allowable ;  business  is  business,  and  everybody  will 
have  to  look  out  for  himself.  But  let  us  modify  the  case. 
Is  it  right  for  me  to  lend  a  man  money  at  interest,  when  I 
know  that  it  is  to  my  advantage,  but  not  to  his,  to  do  so  ? 
Must  I  at  least  first  convince  myself  that  I  am  not  benefit- 
ing myself  at  his  expense  ?  And  how  about  commercial 
transactions  ?  A  banker  is  in  possession  of  a  piece  of  news 
that  is  not  yet  known  to  others;  say,  for  example,  he  has 
heard  of  a  revolution  in  Spain.  He  sells  his  Spanish  bonds, 
and  the  buyers,  instead  of  him,  lose  a  million,  as  the  next 
morning  shows.  Is  that  right?  A  beginner  on  the  stock- 
exchange  may  feel  somewhat  ill  at  ease  after  such  a  venture. 
His  conscience  reminds  him :  Do  not  do  unto  others  as  you 
would  not  have  them  do  unto  you ;  he  would  presumably  not 
like  to  look  his  customers  in  the  face  the  next  day.     But 


shall  I  first  inquire,  every  time  I  make  a  trade,  whether  the 
other  party  is  going  to  suffer  thereby  ?  But  that  is  impossible. 
Commerce  is  possible  only  on  the  assumption  that  both 
parties  are  tacitly  agreed  that  each  is  guarding  his  own 
interests,  and  expects  the  other  to  do  the  same.  Even  the 
most  honest  woman  buys  where  she  can  buy  the  cheapest, 
without  asking  whether  the  seller  can  exist  under  the  cir- 
cumstances ;  and  every  seller  takes  what  he  can  get  without 
asking  whether  his  goods  are  worth  so  much  to  tlie  buyers 
or  not.  Where  shall  we  draw  the  line  between  that  which 
is  unquestionably  right  and  that  which  is  unquestionably 
wrong  ? 

The  above  cases  are  taken  from  the  sphere  of  common 
honesty,  and  are  comparatively  simple.  The  difficulties  be- 
come still  more  apparent  when  we  consider  more  com- 
plicated, delicate,  personal  relations.  A  young  man  has 
promised  a  girl  to  marry  her;  must  he  keep  his  promise? 
Certainly,  he  has  given  his  word  —  his  word  is  sacred.  But  it 
happened  at  a  time  and  under  conditions  in  which  he  was 
not  wholly  master  of  himself;  he  now  sees  that  he  cannot 
keep  his  word  without  getting  into  all  kinds  of  trouble. 
Can  he  break  the  engagement  without  her  consent?  But 
what  would  promises  be  worth  if  they  could  be  broken  as  soon 
as  we  found  it  inconvenient  to  keep  them  ?  But  he  was  de- 
ceived in  the  person,  he  was  deluded  into  taking  the  step  by 
all  sorts  of  feminine  artifices,  and  now  he  finds,  upon  closer 
acquaintance,  that  it  would  be  intolerable  for  him  to  live  with 
her,  that  it  would  be  as  much  of  a  misfortune  for  her  as  for 
him :  what  ought  he  to  do  ?  She  will  not  give  him  up ;  ought 
he  to  marry  her,  or  to  keep  putting  it  off  from  year  to 
year,  or  shoot  himself  through  the  head?  Or  would  it  be 
right  and  dutiful  to  say,  I  cannot  and  I  will  not? 

A  politician  or  a  statesman  differs  from  the  party  or  the 
government  to  which  he  belongs.  A  platform  is  made  or  a 
manifesto  published  in  which  the  point  at  issue  is  emphasized 


860 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


361 


'ww 


as  an  essential  doctrine  of  the  party,  or  as  a  special  aim  of 
the  government.  He  is  asked  to  sign  the  paper.  What 
ought  he  to  do  ?  Sign  it  ?  But  then  he  would  be  subscrib- 
ing to  a  lie.  Leave  the  party  ?  By  doing  this,  he  would  not 
only  end  his  public  career,  but  perhaps  also  seriously  damage 
the  cause  which  he  is  supporting.  What  shall  he  do  ?  Will  an 
appeal  to  the  Kantian  formula  of  duty  tell  him  ?  I  do  not  be- 
lieve it.  He  will  ask  himself  whether  it  is  a  matter  of  great 
importance.  If  not,  then  it  will  be  possible  for  him  to  com- 
promise ;  for  how  could  there  be  co-operation  without  compro- 
mise ?  If,  however,  the  matter  is  of  vital  importance,  he  will 
say  to  himself :  It  is  better  for  me  to  separate  from  my  col- 
leagues than  to  be  an  insincere  and  half-hearted  follower.  — 
But  what  are  the  essentials  ?  —  When  the  German  bishops 
who  opposed  the  dogma  of  infallibility,  accepted  the  dogma 
after  the  decision  had  been  rendered,  they  were  bitterly  re- 
proached. Ought  they  to  have  continued  in  their  opposition, 
and  left  the  church  ?  But  could  they  not  justly  have  said  the 
church  is  more  than  a  piece  of  church  constitution  ?  Still, 
does  any  one  among  them  recall  those  days  with  any  degree  of 
satisfaction  ?  And  has  any  one  of  those  who  took  the  opposite 
course  reproached  himself  for  it  ? 

But,  it  may  be  retorted,  this  makes  all  moral  questions 
uncertain,  and  subjects  them  to  unbridled  casuistry.  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  makes  them  uncertain,  they  are  uncertain, 
and  will  always  remain  so.  The  matter  is  really  not  so 
simple  as  those  imagine  who  hold  tliat  an  innate  power,  called 
practical  reason,  or  conscience,  infallibly  regulates  a  man's 
conduct  by  subsuming  each  case  under  a  general  rule.  The 
problem  surely  does  not  consist  merely  in  deciding  given 
cases  according  to  a  ready-made  formula. 

The  mistaken  idea  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  particular 
cases  concerning  what  is  dutiful  or  undutiful  connects  itself 
with  another  error,  peculiar  to  intuitional  ethics,  that  the 
laws  of  morality  are  laws  with  absolutely  no  exceptions,  and 


that  every  act  not  agreeing  with  the  formula  of  the  law  must 
be  contrary  to  duty,  and  immoral.  We  have  already  touched 
upon  this  point  above  (pp.  233  ff.).  Inasmuch  as  it  most 
clearly  emphasizes  the  difference  between  the  two  schools  of 
moral  philosophy,  I  shall  again  consider  it  here. 

Kant  regards  the  absolute  logical  necessity  of  the  moral 
laws  as  the  backbone  of  his  entire  theory ;  according  to  him, 
uniformity  (^Gesetzmdssigkeit^  is  inseparable  from  morality. 
For  teleological  ethics,  on  the  other  hand,  the  moral  laws 
are  empirical  laws,  like  the  laws  of  physiology,  or  the  rules 
of  dietetics  based  upon  them.  Like  all  empirical  laws  they 
are  open  to  exceptions.  Although  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
certain  modes  of  conduct  have  the  tendency  to  promote  or, 
as  the  case  may  be,  to  injure  the  life  of  the  agent  and  his  sur- 
roundings, it  is  always  possible,  owing  to  the  great  complexity 
of  human  relations,  for  circumstances  to  arise  in  which  the 
natural  effect  is  changed  into  its  opposite.  Hence  the  formal 
breach  of  a  moral  law  may  become  morally  possible,  nay 
necessary.  We  are  never  in  doubt  about  this  when  it  comes 
to  actual  practice.  That  intuitional  ethics  cannot  explain  this 
fact  is  a  further  proof  of  its  insufficiency. 

Let  us  take  an  example.  The  first  duty  of  the  soldier  is 
obedience,  unconditional  obedience  in  the  service.  Military 
obedience  is  a  fundamental  condition  of  the  existence  of  the 
modern  state.  With  what  terrible  seriousness  we  regard  this 
duty  may  be  seen  from  the  severity  of  the  penalties  imposed 
for  the  slightest  infraction  of  the  rule.  Nevertheless,  circum- 
stances can  arise  imder  which  this  duty  may  be  violated  with- 
out remorse  and  without  reproach.  In  the  convention  of 
Tauroggen  General  York  made  a  treaty  with  the  enemy  on  his 
own  responsibility,  basing  his  action  upon  his  individual 
opinion  of  the  political  situation,  in  open  opposition  to  the 
commands  of  the  king,  and,  therefore,  openly  breaking  the 
rule  of  military  obedience.  Was  the  act  contrary  to  duty, 
and  therefore  morally  wrong?    Certainly,  according  to  the 


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363 


Kantian  formula.  York  surely  could  not  have  willed  that  the 
maxim  of  his  action  become  a  universal  law  of  nature  and 
determine  the  actions  of  the  Prussian  soldier,  as,  for  instance : 
When  the  situation  of  the  country  seems  to  you  to  demand  a 
different  course  of  conduct  from  the  one  ordered  by  the  com- 
mander-in-chief, then  act  according  to  your  own  judgment  and 
contrary  to  his  command.  Nevertheless,  York  decided  after 
much  hesitation,  to  do  that  very  thing.  The  outcome  was 
doubtful ;  his  conduct  might,  to  say  nothing  of  the  breach  of 
obedience  and  the  bad  example,  have  caused  the  ruin  of 
the  State.  And  yet  he  acted  as  he  did.  It  seemed  possible 
to  him  to  save  the  country  from  a  humiliating  and  unten- 
able position  at  that  particular  time,  perhaps  only  at  that 
time  and  only  by  his  independent  action.  The  results  justi- 
fied his  conduct ;  the  king  himself  afterwards  recognized 
this,  and  history  now  praises  York's  decision  ;  even  a  French 
historian  will  hardly  blame  him.  This  amounts  to  a  con- 
fession that  cases  can  occur,  in  which  the  safety  of  the 
country  may  demand  of  an  officer  what  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  service  prohibits :  independent  action  in  political 
questions,  against  the  express  command  of  the  government. 
No  general  rule  can  state  when  such  an  emergency  exists. 
We  can  lay  down  as  the  only  possible  universal  rule :  The 
soldier  must  obey,  and  under  no  circumstances  shall  he  be 
impelled  by  independent  political  reflections  to  act  contrary  to 
his  orders.  But  nevertheless  a  condition  is  tacitly  added : 
Provided  the  welfare  of  the  country  does  not  make  a  different 
procedure  absolutely  necessary.  Salus  populi  suprema  lex : 
an  awfully  dangerous,  yet  never- to-be-abolished  proviso  of  all 
particular  laws,  even  of  the  most  inviolable.  It  is  just  that  a 
mistaken  appeal  to  this  law  on  the  part  of  the  soldier  should 
be  punished  with  death. 

There  is  no  moral  law  which  is  not  subject  to  the  same 
condition,  none,  therefore,  that  does  not  admit  of  exceptions. 
Like  the  Sabbath,  the  moral  laws  are  made  for  man,  not  man 


for  the  moral  laws.  The  jurists  have  an  old  maxim :  Fiat 
justitia^pereat  mundus.  In  accordance  with  this,  the  Kantian 
moral  philosophy  says :  Fiat  lex,  pereat  vita.  There  is  a  good 
reason  for  the  formula :  the  stability  of  law  is  more  important 
than  such  and  such  a  particular  purpose ;  but,  ultimately,  the 
law  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  people,  to  preserve  them  and  not 
to  destroy  them.  And  the  same  relation  obtains  between  the 
moral  law  and  human  life.  Ultimately  it  owes  its  value 
solely  to  the  fact  that  it  has  the  tendency  to  preserve  life  and 
not  to  destroy  it.  Should  a  case  arise  in  which  obedience  to 
the  law  would  produce  permanent  ruin,  the  form  must  give 
way  to  the  content,  the  means  to  the  end.  We  shall  have  oc- 
casion, later  on,  to  show  that  the  particular  moral  laws  are 
subject  to  this  condition ;  the  lie  of  necessity,  the  necessary 
wrong,  which  the  jurists  call  the  law  of  necessity,  are  such 
exceptions. 

5.  Conscience,  We  defined  conscience  as  the  consciousness 
of  custom  or  the  existence  of  custom  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
individual.  The  authority  with  which  it  speaks  is  the  au- 
thority of  all  those  who  support  and  protect  custom  and  law 
against  the  particular  deviating  will :  first,  the  authority  of 
parents  and  teachers,  who  impress  custom  or  objective  moral- 
ity upon  the  soul  of  the  child  ;  then  the  authority  of  tlie  wider 
circles,  which  pronounce  judgment  upon  the  conduct  of  the 
individual  by  the  bestowal  of  praise  and  blame,  honor  and 
disgrace  ;  further,  the  authority  of  the  law  and  the  magistracy, 
which  deters  the  offender  by  threats  and  punishments ;  finally, 
the  authority  of  the  gods,  which  surrounds  custom  and  law 
with  religious  awe.  The  individual  compares  his  conduct 
with  the  standard  thus  sanctioned  and  protected,  and  regulates 
his  individual  will  according  to  the  universal  will,  which,  after 
all,  is  his  own  general  or  fundamental  will.  Hence  arise  those 
emotions  which  arc  experienced  before  the  deed  as  the  de- 
terrent or  impelling  conscience,  and  after  the  deed,  as 
remorse  or  moral  satisfaction.     The  content  of  conscience  is 


j\:jl 


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CONCEPTS  AND   PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


365 


varied,  as  varied  as  the  customs  themselves,  which  the  differ- 
ent tribes  and  nations  evolve  according  to  their  different 
natures  and  different  conditions  of  life.  The  form,  however, 
is  universally  the  same  :  a  knowledge  of  a  higher  will,  hy 
which  the  individual  will  feels  itself  internally  hound.  This 
higher  will,  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  universally  regarded  as 
the  will  of  a  superhuman,  of  a  divine  power. 

Those  who  interpret  conscience  as  a  voice  from  above,  and 
regard  their  conception  as  an  explanation  of  its  origin,  reject 
the  historical-psychological  explanation,  not  only  as  an  unsat- 
isfactory, but  even  dangerous  theory  :  it  robs  conscience  of  its 
sanctity,  and  hence  also  destroys  its  efficacy.  And  this  con- 
clusion is  not  infrequently  accepted  by  those  at  whom  it  is 
aimed.  Thus  P.  R^e,  in  his  subtle  work  on  the  Origin 
of  Conscience}^  holds  :  "  The  practical  consequence  of  the  his- 
torical-psychological examination  is  that  the  commands  of 
conscience  will  lose  their  sanctity  ;  whoever  knows  how  human 
were  the  agencies  which  produced  conscience  loses  the  abso- 
lute fear  of  violating  its  commands."  ^ 

I  cannot  share  this  view.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the 
loss  of  the  authority  of  conscience  is  either  a  logical  conse- 
quence or  a  necessary  psychological  effect  of  the  anthropolog- 
ical explanation.  It  is  not  a  logical  consequence,  for  why 
should  the  moral  laws  lose  their  validity  because  we  are  con- 
vinced that  they  express  the  experience  gradually  acquired  by 
the  race  in  regard  to  what  is  wholesome  and  harmful  ?  On 
the  contrary,  what  stronger  proof  can  we  desire  than  the 
hereditary  wisdom  of  a  people  ?  In  conscience  we  have  the 
subjective  reflex  of  the  objective  natural  order  of  moral  life, 
as  it  has  developed  in  custom  and  law  ;  surely  this  knowledge 
cannot  destroy  the  validity  or  the  teleological  necessity  of  the 

1  Ursprung  des  Gewissens. 

2  [See  also  GuyskVi,  Esquisse  d'une  morale  sans  obligation  ni  sanction:  "The 
scientific  spirit  is  the  enemy  of  all  instinct ;  it  tends  to  destroy  the  sense  of 
obligation  on  which  instinct  is  based.  Every  instinct  disappears  upon  conscious- 
ness."—Tr] 


order.  Nor  can  the  psychological  effect  of  the  view  be 
indifference  to  custom.  Not  even  when  we  have  convinced 
ourselves  of  the  falseness  or  absurdity  of  inherited  or  educa- 
tionally acquired  elements  of  soul-life,  do  they  cease  to 
influence  us.  I  should  like  to  know  how  many  of  our  most  en- 
lightened natural-scientists  are  absolutely  free  from  supersti- 
tious fear ;  people  who  do  not  believe  in  ghosts  in  the  day-time 
are  plentiful,  but  how  is  it  at  night  ?  And  here,  in  our  case, 
we  are  not  dealing  with  false  or  meaningless  elements  of  pre- 
sentation and  feeling,  but  with  highly  essential  and  important 
ones.  Surely  no  one  believes  that  a  nation  wholly  devoid  of 
what  we  call  custom  and  conscience,  in  which  the  individual 
is  governed  in  his  actions  by  prudence  and  fear,  could  live  a 
single  day.  Even  the  most  enlightened  philosopher  is  guided 
in  his  daily  conduct,  not  by  moral  philosophy,  but  by  impulses 
and  feelings,  by  custom  and  conscience,  by  his  love  for  the 
good,  his  aversion  to  the  vulgar  and  bad.  Chemistry  is  good 
and  useful,  but  it  does  not  make  taste  and  smell  superfluous ; 
we  shall  continue  to  employ  these  senses  in  discriminating 
substances ;  indeed  they  often  prove  to  be  vastly  superior  to 
the  re-agents  of  the  chemists.  And  who  would  rather  obtain 
his  kitchen  recipes  from  a  chemistry  of  foods  than  trust  the 
hereditary  wisdom  of  the  race  concerning  what  is  wholesome 
and  palatable,  which  has  been  transmitted  and  increased  from 
generation  to  generation  ?  It  is  the  business  of  chemistry 
not  so  much  to  invent  as  to  explain  these  subtle  things ; 
which,  of  course,  will  not  hinder  it  from  giving  us  something 
better  now  and  then.  But  if  any  one  should  decide  to  throw 
away  appetite  and  hereditary  wisdom,  and  trust  himself 
solely  to  chemistry,  we  should  regard  him  as  very  foolish.  It 
would  be  equally  foolish  for  a  man  to  discard  conscience  and 
custom,  and  to  regulate  his  life  solely  by  moral  philosophy .^ 

1  *'  The  painful  feelings  of  shame  or  a  bad  conscience  serve  the  practical 
ends  of  nature.  'J'hey  are  the  preventives,  as  it  were,  which  hinder  us  from  doing 
what  is  injurious  to  the  totality  of  our  organism,  just  as  animals  can  distinguish 


■«■  .ii' 


866 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


But  the  transcendent  sanction  would  surely  disappear!  — 
Here  let  me  simply  say  that  in  my  opinion  the  time  will  never 
come  when  men  will  cease  to  regard  the  morality  and  holi- 
ness which  they  have  evolved  from  their  innermost  being  as 
derived  from  the  essence  of  God  or  the  nature  of  the  All-Real. 
How  could  these  enter  into  the  heart  of  man  were  they  not 
rooted  in  the  very  nature  of  things  ?  Is  man  an  anomaly  in 
the  universe  ?  Is  he  merely  an  accidental  or  external  object 
in  it  ? —  Are  not  he  himself  and  his  entire  essence  grounded  in 
the  All-Real  ?  The  words  of  Hippocrates,  with  which  Stein- 
thal  prefaces  his  treatise  on  the  Origin  of  Language^  are 
applicable  to  every  historical-psychological  view  of  Imman 
affairs  :  All  things  are  divine  and  all  things  are  also  human 
(jrdvTa  Oela  koX  dvdpayTnva  irdvra). 

Certain  individuals  may,  no  doubt,  when  enlightened  as  to 
the  origin  of  conscience,  come  to  believe  that  everything  is 
right  that  can  be  done  without  danger  of  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  police.  When  a  person  who  has  been  accus- 
tomed to  look  upon  the  moral  laws  as  the  arbitrary  commands 
of  an  almighty  being,  who  has  declared  his  intention  of  pun- 
ishing all  violations  sooner  or  later,  begins  to  doubt  the  exis- 
tence of  such  a  being  or  to  disbelieve  in  him  altogether,  he  will 
necessarily  conclude  that  these  laws  have  no  meaning.  And 
I  do  not  know  how  we  can  escape  the  conclusion  if  we  accept 
the  premises  upon  which  it  rests.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no 
way  of  escaping  it,  except  by  showing  that  these  laws  are  not 
the  accidental  injunctions  of  an  arbitrary  being,  but  that  they 
are  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things,  in  the  nature  of  man. 
So  teleological  ethics  conceives  them  ;  and  conscience  it  con- 
ceives as  the  reflection  of  the  objective  uniformity  of  moral 
life  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual.     Hence  it  regards 


between  wholesome  and  unwholesome  food  by  means  of  their  more  finely  devel- 
oped nerves  of  taste.  Whenever  an  individual  or  a  nation  is  deprived  of  the  in- 
stinctive feeling:s  of  shame,  dissolution  follows."  —  ZoUner,  Ueber  die  Natur  def 
Kometen,  3d  edition,  1883,  p.  4. 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


367 


conscience  as  a  highly  important  organ  for  preserving  life,  as 
an  organ  which  cannot  be  destroyed  by  speculations  con- 
cerning its  origin ;  any  more  than  the  value  of  language  can  be 
impaired  by  abandoning  the  old  superstitions  which  explained 
it  as  a  direct  communication  from  heaven.  Or  do  the  rules  of 
grammar  lose  their  validity,  as  soon  as  we  become  convinced 
that  they  originated  in  a  human  way  ?  Well,  then,  neither  will 
the  moral  laws  lose  their  validity.  Whoever  desires  to  parti- 
cipate in  the  intellectual  life  of  his  people  must  speak  their 
language  and  obey  their  laws,  whoever  desires  to  participate 
in  their  moral  life  must  follow  their  customs  and  obey  the  dic- 
tates of  his  conscience.  And  he  must  not  merely  do  these  things 
as  though  he  could  refrain  from  doing  them  if  he  chose :  he  must 
do  them  because  the  language  of  the  people  is  his  conscience, 
because  he  with  his  entire  volitional  and  emotional  nature  is 
the  product  of  the  popular  soul.  —  A  representative  of  the  age 
of  Enlightenment,  like  Voltaire,  who  regards  the  "  annihilation 
of  infamous  superstition  "  as  the  sole  great  object  of  science, 
might  perhaps  triumphantly  exclaim,  after  having  satisfied 
himself  as  to  the  falsity  of  the  theological  explanation  of  con- 
science :  Hence,  conscience  is  nothing,  it  is  but  a  clever 
invention  of  unscrupulous  priests  to  enslave  the  souls  of  men. 
The  historical  school,  which  starts  from  the  hypothesis  that 
everything  has  developed  naturally,  the  evolutionistic  anthro- 
pology of  the  nineteenth  century,  will  view  with  surprise 
this  outburst  of  joy :  as  though  the  falseness  of  the  theory 
implied  the  falseness  of  the  thing  itself,  as  though  the  latter 
would  have  to  stand  and  fall  with  the  former !  Nay,  it  will 
be  convinced  on  a  priori  grounds  that  an  organ  so  universal  as 
this,  must  perform  a  function  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  life ;  otherwise,  how  could  it  have  arisen  ?  And  it  will 
regard  it  as  the  business  of  science  to  show  the  importance  of 
this  organ  for  human  life. 

But  if  science  also  has  a  practical  function  to  perform  here, 
it  will  by  no  means  be  to  destroy,  but  to  preserve  and  develop 


368 


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DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


369 


;i ! 


the  organ.  To  destroy  the  conscience  —  and  this  may  unques- 
tionably be  done  to  a  certain  extent,  not  only  by  false 
methods  of  education,  but  by  false  theories,  namely  by  the 
half-enlightenment  resulting  from  a  false  theological  ex- 
planation—  is  the  most  serious  injury  which  can  be  done 
an  individual  or  community.  As  Sidgwick  admirably  says : 
"For,  though  the  imperfection  that  we  find  in  all  the  actual 
conditions  of  human  existence  is  ultimately  found  even  in 
morality  itself,  still,  practically,  we  are  much  less  concerned 
with  correcting  and  improving  than  we  are  with  realizing 
and  enforcing  it.  The  Utilitarian  must  repudiate  altogether 
that  temper  of  rebellion  against  established  morality,  as 
something  purely  external  and  conventional,  into  which  the 
reflective  mind  is  always  apt  to  fall  when  it  is  first  convinced 
that  its  rules  are  not  intrinsically  reasonable.  He  must,  of 
course,  also  repudiate  as  superstitious  that  awe  of  it  as  an 
absolute  or  Divine  Code  which  intuitional  moralists  inculcate. 
Still,  he  will  naturally  contemplate  it  with  reverence  and 
wonder,  as  a  marvellous  product  of  nature,  the  result  of 
long  centuries  of  growth,  showing  in  many  parts  the  same  fine 
adaptation  of  means  to  complex  exigencies  as  the  most  elab- 
orate structures  of  physical  organisms  exhibit :  he  will  handle 
it  with  respectful  delicacy  as  a  mechanism,  constructed  of 
the  fluid  element  of  opinions  and  dispositions ;  by  the  indis- 
pensable aid  of  which  the  actual  quantum  of  human  happiness 
is  continually  being  produced ;  a  mechanism  which  no  politi- 
cians or  philosophers  could  create,  yet  without  which  the 
harder  and  coarser  machinery  of  positive  law  could  not  be 
permanently  maintained,  and  the  life  of  man  would  become 
—  as  Hobbes  forcibly  expresses  it  —  <  solitary,  poor,  nasty, 
brutish,  and  short.' "  ^ 

6.  Individualization  of  Conscience.  Conscience  is  originally 
the  manifestation  of  custom  or  objective  morality  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  individual;    it   acts  essentially  as   an  in- 

1  Methods  of  Ethics,  pp.  470  f. 


hibition  of  particular  will-impulses  which  deviate  from  the 
normal.  But  this  is  not  its  final  and  highest  form.  It  exer- 
cises a  more  positive  function  in  that  it  reflects  an  ideal 
of  the  perfect  life.  The  elements  of  this  ideal  it  first  obtains 
from  the  objective  morality  of  the  people.  In  its  religious 
and  poetical  creations  every  nation  produces  concrete  images 
of  perfection ;  these  take  possession  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  individual,  and  fashion  liis  nature  and  will.  He  measures 
himself  and  his  conduct  by  the  ideal ;  he  is  pained  when  he 
falls  short  of  it,  pleased  when  he  approximates  it. 

With  the  development  of  mental  life,  this  life-ideal  gradu- 
ally assumes  a  more  specific  and  individualistic  form.     All 
historical  evolution  proceeds  by  differentiation.    From  the 
original  unity  of  the  human  species,  which  we  must  presup- 
pose, the  different  types  of  races  and  nations  have  gradually 
been  differentiated  ;  different  religions  and  different  customs 
express  their  mental  individuality.     As  civilization  advances 
still  further  the    individuals   also   differentiate    themselves 
from  the  mental  life  of  the  people,  and  lead  separate  mental 
existences.     In  the  lower  stages  of  civilization  the  different 
members  of  a  people  are  wholly  alike ;  they  have  the  same 
ideas,  thoughts,  opinions,  habits,  modes  of  conduct ;  in  short, 
their  lives  are  filled  with  the  same  content,  determined  by 
their  religion  and  customs.    A^  the  race  develops,  its  life 
becomes  richer  and   more  varied,  and  at  the   same   time 
greater  differences  appear  among  the  individuals.     The  in- 
dividual begins  to  think  his  own  thoughts ;  he  is  no  longer 
satisfied  with  the  general  conceptions  of  the  world  and  life, 
offered  by  his  religion  and  mythology ;  he  begins  to  philoso- 
phize.    All  philosophy  begins  with  the  emancipation  of  the 
individual  from  commonly  accepted   opinions.     And  in  the 
same  way,  the  individual's  attitude  to  custom  and  to  the  opin- 
ion of  his  surroundings  changes  ;  he  begins  to  follow  his  own 
bent  and  to  mould  his  own  life's  ideal.     The  sphere  of  free, 

individual  action  expands.     The  richer  and  more  varied  the 

24 


P 


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DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


371 


activities  and  relations  of  the  individual  become,  the  less 
able  is  custom  to  rule  authoritatively  ;  the  more  personal  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  his  relations  to  others  become  — 
for  instance  the  relations  existing  between  husband  and  wife, 
parents  and  children  —  the  more  difficult  is  it  to  subject  them 
to  rule,  the  more  they  call  for  special  laws. 

Conscience  thus  acquires  a  new  meaning:  at  first  it 
measures  the  value  of  the  individual  life  solely  by  custom  ; 
now  it  measures  the  actual  life  by  its  special  ideal.  This 
individual  ideal  will  exhibit  the  traits  of  the  particular 
national  life  of  which  it  is  the  product,  it  will  not  be 
unrelated  to  custom ;  still  it  may  differ  widely  from  the 
universal  conception  and  mode  of  life,  so  widely,  indeed,  that 
it  may  even  bring  the  agent  into  conflict  with  custom,  and 
that  this  conflict  may  not  arouse  pangs  of  conscience,  but  be 
recognized  as  a  moral  necessity.  Objective  morality  is  now 
opposed  by  a  subjective  morality,  a  higher  form,  which  applies 

a  new  standard  to  things. 

Whenever  the  personality  whose  individual  ideal  brings  it 
into  antagonism  with  the  objective  morality  of  the  times  and 
leads  to  a  recasting  of  moral  values  is  endowed  with  remarkable 
powers  of  intellect  and  will,  those  conflicts  arise  which  form 
the  dramatic  climaxes  in  history.      The  real  heroes  of  man- 
kind have  fought  such  battles.     They  rebel  against  the  con- 
ventional values,  against  the  ideals  which  have  become  useless 
and  false,  against  sham  and  falsehood,  against  the  salt  that 
has  lost  its  savor.     They  preach  new  truths,  point  out  new 
aims  and  new  ideals,  which  instil  new  life  into  the  soul  and 
raise  it  to  a  higher  plane.    Jesus  fought  this  fight.     He  rose 
above  the  religion  and  the  customs  of  his  nation ;  he  conceived 
of  a  different  and  higher  relation  to  God  than  that  recognized 
by  his  people  ;  and  hence  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  right- 
eousness of  his  people,  with  their  punctilious  and  yet^scant 
and  self-sufficient  fulfilment  of  the  law.     So  he  placed  himself 
and  his  disciples  outside  of  the  law  of  his  people ;  he  broke 


the  Sabbath,  he  did  not  fast,  and  taught  his  disciples  to  follow 
his  example ;  he  gave  them  instead  a  new  commandment : 
"  Love  ye  one  another."  And  when  the  established  system,  the 
objective  righteousness,  protested  against  the  revolt,  he  entered 
upon  the  struggle  of  annihilation  which  ended  in  his  death. 
What  sustained  him  in  his  battles  and  sufferings  and  led  him 
to  victory  was  his  firm  conviction  that  he  had  a  special  mis- 
sion to  perform,  that  he  was  sent  by  the  Father  to  proclaim 
the  new  kingdom  of  love  and  mercy.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  him  that  sent  me."  Thus  Jesus  has  become  the 
eternal  prototype  of  all  those  who  are  thirsting  after  and 
battling  for  the  kingdom  of  God,  for  truth  and  justice,  of  all 
those  for  whom  life,  as  they  find  it,  has  too  little  force  and 
spirituality,  too  little  love  and  freedom,  of  all  those  who  from 
the  fulness  of  their  hearts  reveal  their  feelings  and  thoughts, 
and  are  then  crucified  and  burned  by  the  rabble,  high  and 
low.^ 

The  counterparts  of  these  highest  heroic  types  of  mankind 
are  furnished  by  those  monstrous  criminals,  of  whom  Plato, 

1  Such  an  individual  conscience  we  find,  remarkably  developed,  in  the  man 
who  occupies  such  a  peculiar  position  in  the  moral  history  of  the  Greek  people, 
—  Socrates.  The  Socratic  dcemon  is  essentially  nothing  but  Socrates's  con- 
viction that  he  has  a  particular,  individual  purpose  to  realize,  a  mission  to  fulfil. 
As  L.  Schmidt  admirably  declares  in  his  Ethik  der  alien  Griechen,  I.  224 : 
"  Natures  with  strongly  marked  individualities  and  clearly  conscious  purposes  in 
life  feel  it  as  a  moral  necessity  to  abstain  from  that  which  is  contrary  to  their 
individual  dispositions :  I  cannot  and  must  not,  although  other  persons  would,  if 
they  were  in  my  place,  be  allowed  to  do  it.  The  universal  conscience,  on  the 
otlier  hand,  commands :  I  must  not  do  it,  nor  would  it  be  right  for  any  one  else 
in  my  place  to  do  it."  He  adds  an  apt  quotation  from  Vilmar  :  "  It  (the  daemon) 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  what  Goethe  called  the  lines  of  fortification  of  his 
life,  a  gift  peculiar  to  every  noble  and  finely  constructed  soul :  to  know  and  to  keep 
firmly  in  mind  what  one  cannot  do  without  exceeding  and  transcending  one's 
capacities  and  powers.  This  gift  is  indeed  closely  related  to  conscience,  not  only 
because  of  its  originally  negative  and  prohibitive  nature,  but  also  because  its 
dictates  cannot  be  violated  or  even  temporarily  ignored  without  arousing  a 
spiritual  reaction  similar  to  ethical  remorse :  whenever  we  occupy  ourselves  with 
things  which  (without  having  any  great  significance  in  themselves  or  being 
morally  reprehensible)  transcend  our  capacities  or  do  not  come  up  to  our 
spiritual  powers,  we  cannot  suppress  oar  dissatisfaction  with  oarselves,  a  feeling 
which  almost  amounts  to  aversion." 


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V 


for  instance,  gives  us  a  poetical  though  apparently  faithful 
picture  in  the  tyrant  of  the  Republic,  or  whom  J.  Burck- 
hardt  describes  with  historical  accuracy  in  his  History  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Italy:  those  terrible  characters,  the  Sforza 
and  Borgia,  who,  fearing  neither  God  nor  man,  accomplish 
their  nefarious  designs  with  superhuman  efforts  and  absolute 

recklessness. 

Perhaps  we  may  say  that  every  one  of  these  tremendous 
personalities  has  in  him  the  making  of  a  true  hero  as  well  as 
of  a  criminal  tyrant.     Goethe's  Faust  portrays  the  transforma- 
tion of  one  of  tliese  beings  into  the  other.     In  the  first  part 
Faust  appears  as  the  titanic  individual  who  has  emancipated 
himself  from  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  his  people,  and  now 
seeks  satisfaction  for  his  desires :  that  which  is   allotted  to 
the  entire  race  he  desires  to  enjoy  in  his  own  person,  and 
then,  like  the  race,  to  perish.    He  destroys  the  peace  of  a 
family,  he  sacrifices  the  happiness  of  an  innocent  and  lovable 
girl  to  his  lusts ;  through  him  Gretchen  murders  her  mother, 
her  brother,  and  her  child.     He  forsakes  her,  and  joins  the 
cavalcade  which  moves   upon  the  Blocksherg.     There  is  un- 
doubtedly  something  of   Goethe's   own   nature   in  all  this; 
we  find  similar  traits  in  the  Prometheus  poems.     The  second 
part  of  Faust  aims  to  show  how  the  "  superhuman  being " 
(tfbermensch)    again  subjects  himself  to   measure  and  law. 
The  execution  of  this  plan,  however,  falls  far  below  the  mark. 
Faust  could  have  been  purified  and  "  saved "  only  by  great 
sufferings,  or  by  struggling  zealously  to  attain  some  high  end. 
His  salvation  by  the  "  eternally  feminine  "  is  in  truth  a  rather 
easy  solution  of  the  problem ;  nor  are  we  satisfied  with  the 
curious  hydraulic  enterprises  of  the   old   man.     It   is  true, 
Goethe's  own  life  was  free  from  great  sufferings  and  great 
struggles,  and  he  was  either  too  honest  or  too  subjective  to 
introduce  into  his  poem  anything  that  did  not  form  a  part 
of  his  own  experiences. 

The  two  types,  however,  which  outwardly  resemble  each 


other  in  ignoring  custom  and  law,  differ  in  their  inner  rela- 
tions to  customs  and  the  people.  The  tyrant  despises  and 
breaks  the  moral  laws  in  order  to  give  full  play  to  his  de- 
sires ;  he  wishes  to  enjoy  and  to  rule.  Jesus  announces  as 
his  mission  not  the  destruction  of  the  "  law  "  but  its  fulfil- 
ment ;  his  object  is  to  give  it  a  higher  content  than  the  pro- 
fessional interpreters  can  give  it.  He  knows  what  his  fate  will 
be,  he  does  not  anticipate  splendor  and  power,  but  humiliation 
and  death.  "  The  son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many." 
7.  Moral  nihilism.  The  distinguishing  mark  of  moral 
nihilism  in  concrete,  individual  cases  is  a  complete  absence 
of  conscience  both  in  the  form  of  the  consciousness  of  duty 
as  well  as  of  a  life  ideal.  As  a  theory  or  argument  it  denies 
the  validity  of  all  rules  of  duty  or  moral  laws.  It  declares : 
Duty  is  an  empty  word ;  life  is  a  struggle  for  existence,  and 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  all  means  are  permissible.  Mur- 
der, falsehood,  violence,  are  good  provided  they  are  success- 
ful; they  are  merely  decried  as  bad  by  weaklings  and  gre- 
garious beings,  because  these  are  made  to  suffer  by  them. 
Or :  Justice  and  law  and  religion  were  invented  by  despots  to 
enslave  the  minds  of  the  oppressed;  the  enlightened  man 
knows  that  nothing  binds  him.  And  just  as  there  are  no 
duties  towards  others,  there  can  be  no  duties  towards  self. 
So-called  ideals  are  soap-bubbles  to  delight  children,  or  in- 
tended by  clever  people  to  delude  the  fools.  Goodness  con- 
sists in  doing  and  boldly  carrying  out  what  our  momentary 
desires  demand.  Some  one  has  quoted  as  the  motto  of  an 
aristocratic  Russian  :  Je  ne  crois  rien^je  ne  crains  rien,  Je 
n^aime  rlen  ;  or.  Nothing  binds  me,  neither  morals  nor  duty, 
neither  fear  nor  hope,  neither  love  nor  ideals  ;  the  free  sover- 
eign individual  lives  in  the  moment,  regardless  of  the  future 
as  well  as  the  past.^ 

1  [See  the  Greek  Sophists ;  Plato's  Gorgias,  481  ff. ;  Stirner,  Der  Einzige  tmd 
sein  Eigenthum,   1845,  2d.  ed.,   1882;  Nietzsche    (pp.  150  ff.  supra)  \  Steiuer, 


m 


374 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


375 


V*  .j  ' 


■'i.:  ,:. 


^'i 


Ts  it  possible  to  refute  nihilism ;  can  we  prove  to  any  one 
who  reasons  thus  that  he  is  in  the  wrong  ?    I  do  not  believe 
it.     We  can  tell  and  show  him  that  others  feel  differently,  but 
he  will  answer :  What  do  I  care  ?    You  may  find  feelings  of 
duty  and  ideals  in  yourselves ;  in  me  there  is  nothing  of  the 
kind,   and  I   do   not  regret  it   either.     If  we  say  to  him : 
That  is  a  defect ;   a  human  being  capable  only  of  momen- 
tary pleasures   is   a  contemptible  creature,  he   will   reply: 
I  do  not  agree  with  you ;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  contemptible 
who  has  not  the  courage  to  do  what  he  pleases,  but  lets  all 
kinds  of  imaginary  scruples  defraud  him  of  the  pleasures  of 
the   moment. —This  position  may  be   logically  maintained. 
We  cannot  force  the  nihilist  to  confess  its  falseness  ;  this  we 
could  do  only  in  case  there  were  some  point  of  agreement 
between  us,  a  common  regard  for  that  which  gives  life  its 
value.     Without  this  all  reasonings   are   vain,  nay,  perhaps 
evil,  because  they  simply  confirm  the  nihilist,  who  is  in  love 
with  his  opinions  and  his  own  astuteness,  in  his  error.     The 
feeling  that  he  cannot  be  refuted  will  simply  intensify  his  con- 
viction that  he  is  in  the  right.     Aristotle  did  not  regard  the 
following  hint  as  superfluous :  "  It  is  not  necessary  to  exam- 
ine every  problem  or  every  assertion,  but  only  such  about 
which  some  one  is  really  in  doubt  who  needs  instruction  and 
not  punishment  or  sharpened  wits  ;"  — a  truth  of  which  the 
age  of  paradoxes  in  which  we  live  also  needs  to  be  reminded.^ 

It  is  quite  a  different  question,  however,  whether  nihilism, 
which  cannot  be  refuted  logically,  can  be  consistently  applied 
in  practice,  and  whether  any  man  really  feels  that  only  the 
satisfaction   of  momentary   desires  has  worth.     Perhaps  he 

Philosophie  der  Freiheit,  1894.  Compare  Kreibig,  Geschichte  wid  Kritik  des 
ethischen  Scepticismus,  1896  ;  Nordau,  Degeneration,  vol.  II.  See  also  Turgenev's 
novels,  New ;  Fathers  and  Sons  (English  translations  by  Mrs.  C.  Garnett).—  Tu.] 
1  Aristotle,  Topics,  I.,  11  :  oh  ^(7  irav  Trp6$\v(JLa  ov9f  iraaav  eiffiv  iiriCKOTruv, 
dAX'  ^v  &TrofyfiafifV  &v  ris  rStv  x6yov  Uofiivcev,  koX  /x^  KoKdfffws  fl  alffd-fifftccs  •  ol 
fihv  yhp  &TropouvT€$,  itortpov  5«t  rohs  Btohs  Tt/iov  ^  ow,  Ko\i<rfofS  ^^omat,  ol  8i,  t<J- 


believes  it,  but  is  mistaken  about  himself  and  his  own  will. 
Perhaps  it  will  be  possible  to  change  him  by  appealing  from 
his  understanding  to  his  will :  You  really  do  not  mean  what 
you  say ;  in  you,  too,  the  impulse  of  self-preservation  exists, 
as  more  than  a  desire  to  satisfy  your  momentary  cravings ; 
in  you,  too,  there  is  something  of  an  impulse  of  ideal  self- 
preservation  ;  it  manifests  itself  when  you  combat  and  despise 
whatever  you  regard  as  falsehood  and  sham.  The  epitaph 
of  Sardanapalus  or  of  the  Count  Zaehdarm  (in  Carlyle's 
Sartor  Remrtus)  would  not  wholly  suit  you  after  all.  You 
are  not  so  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  others  as  you  yourself 
say  and  imagine.  Nay,  perhaps  your  belief  that  customs  and 
the  feeling  of  duty  have  no  influence  over  you  is  a  delusion. 
You  may  really  be  convinced  of  it  for  the  time  being ;  under 
suitable  circumstances  you  would  perhaps  discover  to  your 
surprise  that  you  still  have  a  conscience.  I  cannot  prove  this 
to  you ;  I  cannot  force  the  "  ought "  into  you  by  means  of 
arguments ;  but  perhaps  it  is  in  you  without  your  knowing  it.^ 

1  In  Dostoievski's  novel  (Raskolnikow,  Eng.  title,  Crime  and  Punishment),  which 
is  of  unusual  interest  to  moralists  and  psychologists,  moral  nihilism  forms  the  cen- 
tral theme.  The  hero  of  the  novel  is  a  student,  whom  all  kinds  of  unhappy  condi- 
tions have  made  miserable  and  tired  of  life.  In  this  frame  of  mind  he  develops 
the  disease  of  moral  nihilism :  All  moral  judgments  and  feelings  which  educat- 
tion  has  implanted  in  him  now  seem  to  him  ridiculous,  childish  prejudices, 
contemptible  weakness,  to  emancipate  oneself  from  which  is  the  mark  of  a  free 
and  strong  mind.  Encouraged  by  such  reflections,  he  kills  an  old  repulsive 
usuress,  in  order  to  obtain  money,  but  at  the  same  time  also  to  test  his  theory  : 
"  I  wanted  to  know,"  he  afterwards  says  in  discussing  the  matter,  "  whether  I 
was,  like  all  of  them,  merely  vermin,  or  a  man,  whether  I  was  able  to  break  through 
the  barriers  or  not,  whether  I  would  really  dare  to  stoop  to  gain  power  or  not, 
whether  I  was  merely  a  trembling  creature,  or  whether  I  had  a  right  — ."  The 
reaction  of  human  feeling  and  conscience  against  these  nihilistic  sentiments 
and  reflections  before  and  after  the  deed  is  described  with  thrilling  truthfulness. 
He  finds  it  impossible  to  turn  his  thoughts  from  the  crime  ;  it  is  ever  before  his 
mind,  in  his  waking  and  in  his  dreaming,  when  he  is  alone  and  with  others.  As  a 
kind  of  counterpart  to  this  novel,  let  me  call  the  reader's  attention  to  an  admir- 
able story  of  country  life  by  Anzengruber,  Der  Sternsteinhof.  The  heroine  of  the 
narrative  is  a  poor  girl,  full  of  natural  vitality  and  a  strong  desire  to  assert  her- 
self. She  encounters  many  moral  dangers,  and  even  commits  crime,  and  passing 
over  more  than  one  broken  heart  makes  straight  for  her  goal,  which  is,  to 
become  the  peasant  mistress  of  the  Sternsteinhof.    She  is  not  troubled  much  with 


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■v;.:t 


It  is  just  as  impossible  to  force  the  nihilist  by  argument  to 
abandon  his  position  as  it  is  logically  to  refute  a  man  who 
denies  the  existence  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens.     But  this  does 
not  mean  that  nihilism  is  a  valid  theory.     We  cannot  prove  to 
the  fever-patient  that  he  sees  only  hallucinations,  or  to  the 
madman  that  his  fixed  ideas  are  crazy  notions.    That  does  not 
prevent  the  former  from  being  sick  or  the  latter  from  being 
crazy.     An  anthropologist,  a  biological  observer  of  the  genus 
homo  —  let  us  assume,  in  order  to  insure  his  perfect  impartial- 
ity, that  he  has  descended  from  Saturn  to  the  earth,  as  in 
Voltaire's  Mikromegas  —  would  soon  convince  himself  that  a 
man  really  living  according  to  the  principles  of  moral  nihilism 
was  abnormal.     He  would  say  :  He  lacks  an  organ  which  is 
usually  present,  namely,  conscience.     And  he  would  add :  It 
seems  to  be   an  organ  of  some  importance,  for  individuals 
in  whom  it  is  lacking  invariably  perish.     And  if  he  were  to 
investigate  more  closely,  he  would  perhaps  find  that,  as  a  rule, 
such  abnormal  natures  at  the  same  time  exhibit  dangerous 
perversions  of  impulse;  alcoholism  and  perverse  sexual  de- 
sires, which  are  often  hereditary,  are  the  usual  concomitants 
or  the  causes  of  such  perverse  feelings  and  volitions.     The 
usual  consequences  of  the  disease,  however,  he  might  say,  arc 
disgust  with  life,  and  suicide.^    Only  in  case  the  abnormal 

moral  reflections ;  and  pangs  of  conscience  affect  her  only  for  a  moment.  The 
law  of  her  being  proves  to  be  stronger  than  the  moral  law :  it  ignores  her  own 
conscience  and  the  opinion  of  her  surroundings.  As  soon  as  she  reaches  her 
goal  and  establishes  herself  in  the  place  for  which  nature  intended  her,  she 
labors  freely  and  ably,  witliout  worrying' much  about  the  past. 

1  Some  psychiatrists  regard  "moral  insanity "  as  a  peculiar  form  of  disease. 
It  is  characterized  by  a  complete  lack  of  conscience.  Krafft-Ebing  {Lehrlmch 
der  Psychmtne,  II.,  65)  describes  the  disease  as  complete  moral  insensibility. 
Moral  notions  and  judgments  are  apprehended  by  the  understanding  and  tlie 
memory,  but  they  have  absolutely  no  feeling-accompaniments,  and  are  therefore 
wholly  incapable  of  moving  the  will.  "Without  interest  in  anything  that  is 
noble  and  beautiful,  dead  to  all  feeling,  these  unfortunate  malformations  show 
a  woeful  lack  of  filial  and  domestic  love,  of  all  social  instincts,  indifference  to  the 
weal  and  woe  of  their  surroundings.  They  are  utterly  insensible  to  the  moral 
approval  or  disapproval  of  their  fellows,  wholly  devoid  of  feelings  of  conscience 
and  remorse.    They  do  not  know  what  morality  means ;  the  law  they  look  upon 


DUTY  AND  CONSCIENCE 


377 


feelings  are  not  the  result  of  organic  conditions,  but  of  intel- 
lectual error,  of  half-truths,  can  the  diagnosis  be  more  favor- 
able. Here  a  more  thorough  knowledge,  based  upon  wider 
experience,  new  problems  of  life,  and  advancing  age  may  lead 
to  the  removal  of  the  erroneous  views  and  consequently  to  a 
change  of  feeling  and  volition. 

8.  In  conclusion,  let  me  answer  a  few  questions  suggested 
by  the  notion  of  duty.  What  do  we  mean  by  meritorious  con- 
duct ?  Can  a  man  do  more  than  his  duty  ?  What  is  allowable  ? 
Are  there  acts  which  duty  neither  enjoins  nor  prohibits  —  that 
is,  indifferent  acts  ?    Are  there  duties  towards  self  ? 

Such  and  similar  questions  deal  with  difficulties  which  arise 
more  from  the  ambiguities  of  language  than  from  the  nature  of 
the  subject  itself.  They  may  be  easily  answered  by  a  more 
careful  definition  of  the  terms. 

Duty  in  the  narrowest  sense  means  the  performance  of  acts 
or  the  abstention  from  acts  in  which  others  have  a  legal  inter- 
est. It  is  your  duty  to  pay  your  debts,  to  keep  your  contracts, 
not  to  steal  or  defraud.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  a  duty  in 
this  sense  to  do  a  man  a  favor,  to  help  him  when  in  trouble. 
The  former  is  an  obligation,  the  latter  a  purely  voluntary 

affair. According  to  this  meaning  of  the  term,  there  can, 

of  course,  be  no  duties  toward  self. 

merely  as  a  police  regulation,  and  the  most  heinous  crime  they  view  about  as 
an  ethically  sound  person  would  regard  the  violation  of  a  police  ordinance.  This 
defect  renders  such  inferior  beings  incapable  of  living  permanently  in  society  and 
makes  them  fit  candidates  for  the  workhouse,  insane  asylum,  or  penitentiary.  — 
Besides  this  lack  of  ethical,  altruistic  feelings,  they  manifest  formal  affective 
derangement,  great  emotional  irritability,  which  in  conjunction  with  the  absence 
of  moral  feelings  impels  them  to  acts  of  great  brutality  and  cruelty."  On  the 
other  hand,  these  patients  seem  to  be  unaffected  intellectually,  if  we  regard  formal 
logical  thought,  prudence,  action  according  to  plan,  as  decisive.  Hallucinations 
and  illusions  are  absent.  Still,  intellectual  degeneracy  is  never  entirely  lacking. 
"  Not  onlv  are  they  ignorant  of  what  is  immoral,  but  they  do  not  even  know  what 
is  detrimental  to  their  interests.  In  spite  of  all  evidence  of  shrewdness  they  often 
surprise  us  by  their  total  disregard  of  the  sim])lest  rules  of  prudence  in  their 
criminal  acts.  On  the  formal  side,  we  must  especially  emphasize  the  defective 
wav  in  which  they  reproduce  ideas."  Finally,  perverse  impulses  are  common  in 
the  organic  and  particularly  in  the  sexual  sphere. 


1-1 

I:     \ 


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CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


fi" 


w 


IP 


:•(■ 


''    ^ 


Duty  in  a  wider  sense  means  conduct  in  accordance  with 
the  demands  of  custom,  or  the  laws  of  morality.  According 
to  this  interpretation  of  the  term,  it  would,  undoubtedly,  be 
a  violation  of  our  duty  to  humanity  to  refuse  to  answer  a 
stranger's  polite  question  concerning  the  road  to  take:  the 
duty  of  love  of  neighbor  enjoins  kindness.  On  the  other 
hand,  duty  does  not  demand  that  I  save  another's  life  at  the 
risk  of  my  own :  whoever  does  this  performs  a  meritorious  act, 
but  whoever  refrains  from  doing  it  violates  no  duty.  Heroism 
and  holiness  are  not  duties.  In  this  sense  we  also  speak  of 
duties  to  self.  It  is  a  duty  to  develop  our  own  capacities ; 
it  is  a  violation  of  duty  for  one  to  ruin  his  health  by  acts 
of  imprudence,  to  waste  his  mental  powers  in  idleness  and 
dissipation.  But  here,  too,  there  is  a  limit  to  the  requirements 
of  duty,  and  here,  too,  we  have  heroism  which  does  more  than 
is  demanded,  which  is  meritorious.  —  Hence  merit  consists  in 
doing  more  than  average  virtue  requires.  This  likewise  de- 
termines the  concept  of  the  allowable.  It  is  allowable  to  take 
recreation,  although  we  have  plenty  of  work  to  do  and  the 
power  to  do  it ;  it  is  allowable  to  seek  enjoyment,  although 
there  are  others  whom  we  might  help  by  denying  ourselves. 
In  a  word,  it  is  allowable  to   remain  within  the  limits   of 

average  virtue. 

The  word  duty,  finally,  is  also  used  in  a  widest,  fullest 
sense,  in  which  both  the  notion  of  merit  and  the  notion  of  the 
allowable  have  no  meaning.  Christianity  commands  its  dis- 
ciples :  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  even  as  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  In  the  face  of  this  imperative  there 
can,  of  course,  be  no  excess  in  virtue ;  hence  there  can  be  no 
merit  before  God.  Whoever  has  kept  the  commandments, 
let  him  say  :  I  have  done  my  duty ;  or,  as  the  saint  prefers  to 
say,  since  human  beings  do  not  achieve  this  goal:  I  am  an 
unworthy  servant. 


CHAPTER  VI 

EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM » 

1.  Acts  are  called  egoistic  when  their  motive  is  individual 
weal  or  woe,  altruistic  when  their  motive  is  the  weal  and  woe 
of  others.  Some  moralists  regard  these  motives  as  mutually 
exclusive.  Every  act  is  the  product  of  either  egoistic  or 
altruistic  motives,  and  is  therefore  either  egoistic  or  altru- 
istic. This  view  gives  rise  to  two  opposing  schools.  Pure 
altruism  sets  up  the  principle :  Acts  have  moral  worth  only  in 
so  far  as  they  are  determined  by  purely  altruistic  motives. 
Pure  egoism  asserts :  It  is  not  only  allowable,  but  morally 
necessary  to  make  individual  welfare  the  sole  end  of  action. 

A.  Comte,  who  coined  the  term,  inclines  to  altruism. 
Schopenhauer  advocates  the  theory  in  its  extremest  form. 
Every  act,  he  argues,  has  a  motive ;  only  weal  or  woe  can  be 
a  motive ;  the  weal  or  the  woe  is  either  that  of  the  agent  him- 
self or  that  of  another.  Only  in  the  latter  case,  does  an  act 
possess  moral  worth  ;  this  depends  solely  upon  "  whether  the 
act  is  committed  or  omitted  for  the  good  of  another.  When- 
ever this  is  not  the  case,  the  weal  or  woe  impelling  or  hinder- 
ing the  performance  of  each  act  can  only  be  that  of  the  agent 
himself ;  then  the  act  is  invariably  egoistic,  and  hence  without 
moral  worth."     It  becomes  bad  when  the  welfare  of  self  is 

1  [See  the  ethical  works  of  Bacon,  Cumberland,  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson,  But- 
ler, Hume,  A.  Smith,  J.  S.  Mill,  Bain,  Darwin,  Sidgwick ;  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics, 
chaps.  XI.-XIV. ;  Stephen,  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  VI. ;  Simmel,  Einleitmg, 
chap.  II. ;  Mackenzie,  Manual,  chap.  IX.,  also  p.  322 ;  Williams,  Evol.  Ethics, 
Part  II.,  chap.  V. ;  Hiiffding,  Ethik,  VIII. ;  Harris,  Moral  Evolution ;  Drum 
mond,  Ascent  of  Man.  —  See  also  James's  Psychology,  vol.  I.,  chap.  X.  —  Tr  J 


It 


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CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND   ALTRUISM 


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sought  at  the  expense  of  others'  welfare.^  Popular  usage 
seems  to  favor  this  view;  the  adjective  selfish  implies  blame, 
while  the  adjective  unselfish  implies  moral  approval.^ 

The  absolute  altruism  of  Schopenhauer  and  his  disciples  is 
opposed  by  its  direct  contrary,  absolute  egoism.  This  is  not 
so  common,  and  appears  in  the  form  of  a  paradox.  Nietzsche 
approximates  it:  it  is  the  reaction  against  Schopenhauer's 
altruism.  Besides,  there  is  a  tendency  to  absolute  egoism  in 
Schopenhauer  himself;  his  contempt  for  the  masses  and 
humanity,  and  the  high  estimate  which  he  places  upon  genius, 
suggest  it.  If  humanity  has  worth,  solely  because  of  the  few 
geniuses  it  produces,  then  it  is  right  that  the  masses  be 
regarded  and  employed  by  them  as  means ;  an  absolute  aris- 
tocratic-egoistic morality  would  be  the  consequence.  But  a 
democratic-egoistic  form  of  morality  is  equally  conceivable. 
The  individualistic  utilitarianism  of  Hobbes^  and  Spinoza 
approximates  it:  Everybody  strives  exclusively  for  his  own 
self-preservation,  that  is  the  order  of  nature,  but  likewise 
the  moral  order.  When  a  man  solely  pursues  his  own  real 
good,  he  does  right,  that  is  all  that  morality  demands.  More- 
over, he,  at  the  same  time,  does  the  best  he  can  for  others ; 
by  a  kind  of  pre-established  harmony  the  true  interests  of  all 
individuals  coincide.* 

Indeed,  the  standpoint  of  absolute  egoism  is  logically  ten- 
able ;  we  can  imagine  a  society  in  which  every  one  acts  accord- 

*  Grundlage  der  Morale  §  16- 

2  [Cf.  Fichte,  Characteristics  of  the  Present  Age,  §  70 :  "  There  is  but  one  virtue, 
and  that  is  to  forget  oneself  as  a  person  ;  h\xt  one  vice :  to  think  of  oneself.  Who- 
ever in  the  slightest  degree  thinks  of  his  own  personality,  and  desires  a  life  and 
being  and  any  self-enjoyment  whatever,  except  for  the  race,  is  fundamentally 
and  radically  ...  a  low,  petty,  wicked,  and  wretched  fellow." — Tr.] 

*  [Leviathan  ;  On  Liberty  and  Necessity.] 

*  [Egoists :  Mandeville,  Enquiri/  info  the  Origin  of  Moral  Virtue  ;  Fable  of  the 
Bees  ;  La  Rochefoucauld,  Reflexions,  166.5  ;  La  Bruy^rc,  TjCS  caracteres  et  les  mcettrs 
de  ce  siecle,  1687  ;  Lamettrie,  L'homme  machine,  1748 ;  Helvetius,  De  Vesprit,  1758 ; 
Holbach,  Systeme  de  la  nature,  1770;  Paley,  Moral  Philosophy;  Bentham,  Prin- 
ciples of  Morals  and  Legislation.  Hartley  and  the  associationists  derive  the  sym- 
pathetic feelings  from  egoism.    See  also  Jhering,  vol.  II.  —  Tb.] 


ing  to  the  maxim  of  pure  egoism,  whereas  a  society  in  which 
every  one  uniformly  acts  according  to  the  maxim  of  pure 
altruism  is  not  even  conceivable.    In  so  far  as  the  economic 
world   is    based  upon   contract    and  commerce,   it   approxi- 
mately realizes  the  principle  of  egoism  ;  we  have  here  a  plu- 
rality of  individuals,  each  of  whom  has  in  view  only  his  own 
interests,  and  yet  a  certain  harmony  of  the  interests  of  all. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  make  pure  altruism  the  leading 
principle,  every  man  caring  only  for  the  interests  of  others 
and  never  for  his   own,  we  evidently  bring  about  such  an 
absurd  exchange  of  interests  as  to  make  collective  life  incon- 
ceivable. —  Neverthless,  pure  egoism,  too,  is  practically  just 
as  impossible  as  pure  altruism.     A  society  based  solely  upon 
egoism  is  conceivable,  but  psychologically  impossible.     Even 
in  economic  affairs,  other  motives,  besides  calculating  self- 
interest,  play  a  part,  e.  g.,  emotional  influences  of  all  kinds,  a 
sense  of  what  is  proper  and  improper,  a  regard  for  the  con- 
dition of  others,  the  inhibition  of  egoistic  impulses  by  shame 
and  conscience.     And  it  is  really  doubtful  whether  the  com- 
plete elimination  of  these  motives  could  be  borne,  whether 
we  could  always  choose  with  sufficient  accuracy  between  our 
true  interests  and  our  apparent  interests,  whether  a  temporary 
advantage  would  not  often  defeat  a  real  advantage,  and  whether 
the  war  of  all  against  all  would  not  put  an  end  to  the  life  of 
society.    Still  less  possible  would  be  the  more  personal  rela- 
tions, such  as  those  existing  between  husband  and  wife,  or  par- 
ents  and    children,   without    their   natural    foundation,  the 
sympathetic  feelings.     We  may,  perhaps,  conceive  of  a  mother 
who  cares  for  and  educates  her  children  solely  from  selfish 
considerations ;  but  nobody  will  regard  her  as  psychologically 
possible,  unless,  of  course,  he  includes  the  welfare  of  the  child 
in  the  selfish  interests  of  the  mother,  in  which  case  the  dis- 
pute  is  merely  a  verbal  one.    For  we  called  the  feeling  for  the 
weal  and  woe  of  other  individuals  altruistic  or  sympathetic 
feeling  as  distinguished   from  egoistic  or  idiopathic  feeling. 


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CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


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But  if  I  insist  that  the  sympathetic  feeling,  too,  is  mi/  feel- 
ing and  consequently  an  egoistic  motive,  there  can,  of  course, 
be  no  other  motives  than  egoistic  motives.  I  can  be  deter- 
mined to  action  only  by  mt/  motives  and  feelings,  not  by  those 
of  another.  Still,  this  does  not  obliterate  the  distinction ;  we 
should  then  have  directly  egoistic  and  indirectly  egoistic 
impulses;  the  latter,  however,  would  be  the  same  as  those 
usually  called  sympathetic  or  altruistic.  And  we  should  have 
to  say  that  without  these  sympathetic-altruistic  motives,  a 
human  life  would  be  just  as  impossible  as  without  the  egoistic 
ones.  Both  together  are  needed  to  make  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  life  of  the  whole  possible. 

Both  of  these  false  moral  principles,  pure  altruism  and  pure 
egoism,  are  ultimately  based  upon  a  false  anthropology.  They 
presuppose  with  the  old  system  of  rationalistic  individualism, 
that  every  individual  is  an  absolutely  independent  being,  and 
comes  in  contact  with  other  beings  only  occasionally  and  acci- 
dentally. In  these  relations,  for  which  we  can  keep  separate 
accounts,  he  is  either  egoistic  or  altruistic.  In  the  latter  case, 
altruism  says  his  conduct  is  moral,  at  other  times  it  is  indiffer- 
ent or  bad,  whereas,  egoism  demands  that  he  seek  his  own 
advantage  even  in  his  occasional  dealings  with  others.  Both 
theories  are  founded  upon  a  view  like  the  one  advanced  by 
Jeremy  Bentham  at  the  beginning  of  his  Principles  of  Morals 
and  Legislation :  "  A  community  is  a  fictitious  hodi/,  composed 
of  individual  persons  who  are  considered  as  constituting,  as  it 
were,  its  members."  This  conception  has  been  abandoned 
since  the  eighteenth  century,  at  least  in  Germany ;  a  people 
is  not  Si.  fictitious  body,  of  which  the  individuals  are  the  ficti- 
tious  members,  but  a  unified  being  to  which  the  individuals 
bear  the  same  relation  as  organs  to  a  body.  Just  as  the 
organs  are  produced  by  the  whole  and  exist  in  it  alone,  so 
the  individuals  are  produced  by  the  people  and  live  and  move 
in  it  alone ;  they  function  as  its  organs,  they  speak  its  lan- 
guage, they  think  its  thoughts,  they  are  interested  in  its  wel- 


fare, they  desire  its  life ;  they  propagate  and  rear  offspring, 
and  so  perpetuate  the  race.  And  this  objective  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  whole  manifests  itself  subjectively 
in  his  volitional  and  emotional  life.  Everywhere  the  circles  of 
the  ego  and  the  non-ego  intersect.  This  fact  is  universally 
accepted;  only  in  moral  philosophy  we  still  find  persons 
who  do  not  see  it,  who  insist  on  regarding  the  antithesis 
between  altruism  and  egoism  as  an  absolute  one.  I  should 
like  to  show  how  little  the  facts  agree  with  this  view ;  in  our 
actual  life  and  practice  there  is  no  such  isolation  of  in- 
dividuals; the  motives  and  effects  of  action  are  constantly 
intersecting  the  boundaries  of  egoism  and  altruism. 

2.  Let  me  first  prove  it  for  the  effects.  There  is  no  act 
that  does  not  influence  the  life  of  the  individual  as  well  as 
that  of  the  surroundings,  and  hence  cannot  and  must  not  be 
viewed  and  judged  from  the  standpoint  of  both  individual 
and  general  welfare.  The  traditional  classification,  which 
distinguishes  between  duties  towards  self  and  duties  towards 
others,  cannot  be  recognized  as  a  legitimate  division.  There 
is  no  duty  towards  individual  life  that  cannot  be  construed 
as  a  duty  towards  others,  and  no  duty  towards  others  that 
cannot  be  proved  to  be  a  duty  towards  self. 

Care  of  one's  own  health  appears  at  first  sight  to  be  purely 
selfish.  Reflection,  however,  will  clearly  show  that  the  pos- 
sessor of  good  health  is  by  no  means  the  only  interested 
party.  Every  disturbance  and  its  consequences  spread  from 
the  seat  of  its  origin  to  the  surroundings.  The  ill-humor 
which  results  from  an  improper  mode  of  life  or  a  neglect  of 
self,  is  not  confined  to  the  guilty  person  ;  he  is  cross  and 
irritable,  and  his  moodiness  and  moroseness  are  a  source  of 
annoyance  to  the  entire  household.  In  case  of  serious  sick- 
ness, the  family  becomes  uneasy  and  anxious,  and  perhaps 
suffers  materially  from  a  diminished  income  and  an  increase  of 
expenditures.  When  the  patient  is  an  official,  his  colleagues 
are  made  to  suffer ;  they  have  to  do  his  work ;  if  he  has 


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384 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


385 


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absolutely  ruined  his  health,  he  becomes  a  pensioner,  and  so 
increases  the  public  burdens.  Conversely,  whoever  cares  for 
his  health  perhaps  does  his  surroundings  the  greatest  service 
which  he  can  do  them ;  hence  we  may  say,  with  Spinoza : 
Conatus  sese  conservandi  primum  et  unicum  virtutis  est  furi' 
damentum.  Indeed,  with  only  a  little  more  rational  self-love, 
the  largest  portion  of  human  misery  would  disappear.  Take 
away  drunkenness  and  dissipation,  and  nine-tenths  of  the 
wretchedness  would  be  gone.  —  It  is  the  same  in  the  economic 
sphere.  To  acquire  wealth  seems  to  be  the  central  purpose 
of  our  egoistic  strivings.  But  industry,  energy,  and  frugality 
may,  with  equal  right,  be  defined  as  duties  towards  others. 
The  beneficent  effects  make  themselves  directly  felt  in  the 
family,  and  in  the  education  of  the  younger  generation.  But 
the  community,  too,  and  finally  the  nation,  nay,  even  the 
entire  economic  world,  have  an  interest  in  them.  The  welfare 
of  a  community,  or  a  nation,  consists  in  the  welfare  of  the 
particular  families.  Conversely,  the  vagrant,  the  spendthrift, 
injures  first  himself,  then  his  family,  perhaps  to  remote  gen- 
erations —  for  shif tlessness  and  mendicancy  are  liereditary  as 
well  as  bodily  defects  —  and  at  last,  the  entire  nation,  either 
by  becoming  a  burden  upon  public  charity,  or  by  helping  to 
turn  production  into  false  channels  and  by  destroying  mor- 
ality with  his  bad  example. 

So  we  may  say  in  general :  All  qualities  and  acts  which 
promote  or  disturb  the  healthy  development  of  individual  life, 
at  the  same  time  tend  to  have  beneficial  or  injurious  effects 
upon  the  development  of  collective  life.  Or,  as  Spinoza  puts 
it :  Quum  maodme  unusquisque  suum  sibi  utile  quaerit^  turn 
maxime  homines  sunt  sibi  in  vicem  utiles. 

But  the  converse  is  likewise  true :  Social  virtues  tend  to 
have  a  good  effect  upon  individual  welfare,  whereas  their  ab- 
sence is  detrimental  to  individual  life. 

The  family  is  the  most  important  sphere  for  the  develop- 
ment of  social  virtues ;  for  the  large  majority  of  men  the 


most  serious  duties  towards  others  are  embraced  in  this  circle. 
It  requires  no  argument  to  show  that  all  acts  and  qual- 
ities which  promote  the  welfare  of  the  family  have  beneficial 
effects  upon  the  individual.  The  surest  and  greatest  source 
of  happiness  to  parents,  nay,  almost  the  only  one  in  their  old 
age,  is  the  good  training  which  they  have  given  their  children ; 
hardly  any  other  neglect  of  duty  is  followed  by  such  certain 
and  painful  penalties  as  improper  training.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  regard  honesty  in  economic  life  as  a  duty  to  others. 
It  is  no  less  a  duty  of  the  individual  towards  himself.  Many 
proverbs  express  the  experience  of  the  race  on  this  point : 
Honesty  is  the  best  policy ;  Ill-gotten  goods  seldom  prosper ; 
The  biter  is  sometimes  bit;  111  got,  ill  spent.  We  cannot 
adduce  a  statistical  proof  for  the  truth  of  these  observations, 
but  a  psychological  proof  is  not  hard  to  find.  Dishonesty 
deadens  the  desire  for  honest  acquisition;  and  theft  is  always 
an  uncertain  and  precarious  means  of  livelihood.  What  we 
have  honestly  acquired  is  productive  of  blessings;  stolen 
goods  have  the  opposite  effect.  And  if  all  this  were  not  true, 
if  it  were  possible  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  theft  permanently  and 
in  safety  who  is  proof  against  his  own  conscience?  Every 
man  shares  the  sentiments  and  judgments  of  society;  they 
may  be  temporarily  obscured,  but  no  one  can  be  sure  that 
they  will  not  manifest  themselves  again  some  day ;  no  one 
has  ever  done  well  to  burden  himself  with  a  black  secret.  —  A 
modest,  open,  peaceable  demeanor  we  regard  as  a  duty  to- 
wards others.  There  is  no  surer  way  of  making  one's  own 
life  happy.  It  wins  friends  for  one,  it  creates  an  atmosphere 
of  peace  and  good  cheer  in  the  surroundings,  which  is  reflected 
back  to  its  source.  And  vice  versa,  a  haughty,  envious, 
quarrelsome,  deceitful,  malicious  nature  is  a  certain  means 
to  an  unhappy,  sorrowful  life. 

Hence  duties  towards  others  and  duties  towards  self  do  not 
exclude  each  other  ;  individual  welfare  and  the  welfare  of  the 

collective  bodies  of  which  every  one  forms  a  part  —  the  family^ 

25 


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886 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


387 


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the  social  and  economic  sphere,  the  community,  the  state  —  are 
so  interwoven  that  whoever  cares  for  his  own  true  welfare  at 
the  same  time  promotes  that  of  these  bodies  ;  and  vice  versa  ^ 
whoever  faithfully  performs  the  duties  which  are  imposed  by 
them  works  for  his  own  good. 

3.  It  is  as  impossible  to  distinguish  absolutely  between 
egoistic  and  altruistic  acts  on  the  ground  of  their  motives  as 
it  is  to  separate  them  according  to  their  effects.     Indeed,  it  is 
a  somewhat  curious  notion,  this  notion  that  every  act  must 
have  one  motive.     Nay,  just  as  many  causes  co-operate  in  the 
physical  world  to  produce  a  movement,  so  many  motives  work 
together  to  determine  the  will.     As  a  rule,  a  particular  act 
results  from  the  interaction  of  a  permanent  tendency  of  the 
will,  which  in  turn  depends  upon  the  agent's  nature  and  life- 
conditions,  and  the  surrounding  circumstances.     Altruistic 
motives   have   invariably    contributed    to  educate    the   will, 
while  among  the  conditions  referred  to  we  may  often  reckon 
the  entreaties,  commands,  exhortations,  admonitions,  praise 
and  censure  of  persons  who  exert  an  influence  either  directly, 
in   word,  or  by   their   mere   existence,  even  without  being 
actually  present.     Is  it  an  egoistic  or  an  altruistic  motive 
that  impels  the  peasant  to  cultivate  his  fields,  to  improve  his 
land,  to  work  industriously  year  after  year,  and  day  after  day  ? 
This  is  an  absurd  alternative.     If  the  peasant  himself  were 
asked  whether  he  did  all  these  things  for  his  own  or  others' 
sake,  he  would  look  at  the  questioner  in  a  perplexed  way,  as 
though  doubting  his  sanity,  and  if  he  answered  at  all,  he 
would  say  :  I  do  them  because  they  must  be  done ;  otherwise 
my  property  will  go  to  rack  and  ruin.     And  why  should  n't  it 
go  to  ruin  ?    Well,  it  would  be  a  shame  to  ruin  it.     Besides,  it 
gives  me  and  my  family  a  living.  —  And  if  the  moralist  were 
to  investigate  more  closely,  he  would  perhaps  find  that  this 
same  peasant  was  laboring  zealously  for  his  community,  that 
he  was  rearing  sons  for  his  country  and  furnishing  the  army 
with  soldiers,  and  that  he  really  desired  to  do  all  these  things, 


and  that  he  could  not  do  them  without  working  as  he  does. 
He  is  not  working,  say  a  little  for  himself  and  a  little  for 
others,  but  for  both  at  the  same  time.  His  action  is  deter- 
mined by  all  his  conscious  and  unconscious  purposes  taken 
together,  and  there  are  no  separate  accounts  in  his  bookkeep- 
ing, for  himself,  for  his  family,  and  for  the  community. 
Such  exact  calculations  are,  like  the  balance  of  pleasure,  to 
be  found  only  in  the  works  of  moral  theorists  whose  hair- 
splittings hinder  them  from  seeing  the  facts. 

Is  the  case  different  with  the  artist,  scholar,  or  statesman  ? 
Perhaps  he  will  be  told  upon  his  seventieth  anniversary,  or 
upon  some  other  occasion,  that  he  has  lived  and  worked 
solely  for  the  welfare  of  the  people  or  the  cause  of  humanity. 
Now  and  then  a  man  may  be  found  who  will  give  himself 
such  a  character  as  Christian  Wolff  gave  himself  in  one 
of  his  prefaces,  where  he  states  that  he  had  always  felt  a 
great  love  for  the  human  race  and  had  composed  all  his  works 
for  its  benefit.  I  do  not  like  to  question  old  Wolff's  veracity, 
but  I  am  rather  inclined  to  doubt  his  statement.  Did  he 
really  first  decide  to  benefit  the  human  race,  did  he  then 
deliberate  how  to  serve  humanity,  and,  after  finding  that 
nothing  could  be  more  useful  than  "rational  thoughts,"  begin 
to  write  his  books  ?  Hardly ;  I  imagine  that  he  first  felt 
impelled  to  think  about  things  in  order  to  clarify  his  own 
thoughts ;  that  after  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  this  to  his 
own  satisfaction,  he  could  not  rest  until  he  had  written  out  a 
clear  and  elaborate  account  of  his  views ;  that  he  occasionally 
considered  with  satisfaction  how  lucidly  they  were  expressed, 
how  his  readers  would  praise  his  work,  in  what  glowing 
terms  the  learned  journals  would  speak  of  it,  how  chagrined 
his  opponents  would  be  at  the  telling  arguments  against  them ; 
that,  now  and  then,  he  may  have  thought  of  humanity  and  of 
the  value  of  knowledge  for  the  world  and  of  the  advance- 
ment of  truth  by  means  of  his  labors.  And  the  worth  of  these 
books  will  not  be  diminished  by  the  fact  that  they  were  made 


388 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


389 


(  i 


(I*  L 

<  1 


in  a  perfectly  human  way.      On  the  contrary,  the  value  of 
works  composed  "  for  others  "  is  perhaps  much  more  doubtful 
than  the  value  of  those  whose  authors  were  interested  solely 
in  the  subject  itself,  and  perhaps  occasionally  thought  of  their 
fame.     Schopenhauer  was  not  in  the  habit  of  worrying  much 
about  the  weal  and  woe  of  others ;  what  he  thought  and  wrote 
he  wrote  for  his  own  sake,  in  order  to  solve  the  great  riddle  of 
existence,  in  order  to  preserve  the  thoughts  which  pleased 
him,  in  the  happy  moment  of  their  birth,  and  to  create  for 
himself  happy  surroundings  in  them.     He  did  not  write  for 
others ;  he  wrote  no  text-books,  no  systems,  no  learned  works, 
but  he  wrote  for  himself  just  as  the  true  poet  writes  poetry 
for  himself,  and  the  true  artist  creates  for  himself  and  gives 
expression  to  what  his  soul  conceives.    Of  course,  if  there 
were   no  "others,"   nothing  would  be  created.     No  orator 
would  speak  without  an  audience  to  hear  him,  no  poet  make 
poetry  without  a  people  to  read  or  sing  his  songs,  no  author 
write  unless  there  were,  at  least  in  his  imagination,  persons 
who  would  read  what  he  wrote.    Nevertheless,  if  a  man  is  not 
so  full  of  his  subject  that  he  cannot  help  speaking  of  it,  if  he 
must  first  be  impelled  to  do  so  by  his  consideration  of  others 
and  their  good,  he  may  save  his  efforts  without  endangering  the 
welfare  of  others.     Hoffding  quotes  a  remark  of  Goethe  to 
Eckermann :  "  I  never  asked  myself  in  my  profession  as  a  lit- 
erary man :  What  do  the  masses  want,  and  how  can  I  serve 
humanity  ?    But  I  always  simply  endeavored  to  make  myself 
wiser  and  better,  to  enrich  my  own  personality,  and  then 
always  to  say  only  what  I  had  found  to  be  good  and  true." 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  genuine  self-sacrifice  also. 
Was  the  motive  which  actuated  Leonidas  and  his  band,  egois- 
tic or  altruistic  ?  The  question  is  absurd  and  tries  to  separate 
what  cannot  be  separated.  Certainly,  they  battled  for  their 
country  ;  but  of  course,  the  country  was  their  country  and  not 
a  foreign  country.  On  the  other  hand,  they  fought  and  fell  for 
their  own  glory,  but  their  glory  was  likewise  the  glory  of  Sparta. 


How  would  it  be  possible  to  distinguish  between  the  personal 
and  the  altruistic  element  here  ?  Hence,  we  may  say  :  Every 
self-sacrifice  is  at  the  same  time  self-preservation,  namely 
preservation  of  the  ideal  self ;  indeed,  it  is  the  proudest  kind 
of  self-assertion  for  me  to  sacrifice  myself,  for  me  to  stake  my 
life,  in  battling  for  a  good  which  I  esteem  higher  than  my  life. 
A  purely  passive  sacrifice  would  not  be  my  act,  and  hence  not 
self-sacrifice.  There  is  therefore  always  a  "  selfish  "  element 
in  it ;  "  unselfish  "  conduct  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  The 
self  is  always  involved,  it  sacrifices  a  good  only  for  a  higher 
good,  possessions  for  fame,  a  good  name  for  a  good  conscience, 
life  for  the  freedom  and  honor  of  the  people.  And  vice  versa, 
the  traitor  sacrifices  his  friend  or  his  reputation  or  his  people 
for  thirty  pieces  of  silver;  he,  too,  would  rather  have  the 
thirty  pieces  of  silver  without  the  sacrifice.  The  only  differ- 
ence lies  in  the  evaluation  of  the  goods ;  and  this  is  what  de- 
termines the  value  of  the  man  :  he  expresses  his  own  worth, 
his  innermost  disposition,  in  the  values  which  he  places  upon 

the  goods. 

Physicists  claim  that  there  is  no  isolated  point  in  the  uni- 
verse, that  every  element  of  the  corporeal  world  stands  in 
reciprocal  relation  with  every  other  one.  There  is  no  isolated 
point  in  the  moral  world  either.  Every  act  of  every  man  in- 
fluences the  entire  moral  universe,  and  every  act  in  the  universe 
reacts  upon  every  individual.  We  cannot  trace  these  effects 
and  show  what  they  are,  nor  can  we  do  this  in  the  physical 
world  :  the  fall  of  a  stone  does  not  change  the  earth's  centre 
of  gravity  to  any  perceptible  degree,  but  it  changes  it  none 
the  less.  Similarly,  an  individual's  liking  for  or  aversion  to 
coffee  or  tobacco  does  not  noticeably  affect  the  market  value 
of  these  commodities,  yet  it  changes  it,  and  thereby  influences 
agriculture  and  the  economic  activity  of  mankind.  The  indi- 
vidual's like  or  dislike  for  a  mode  of  conduct,  a  form  of  art, 
a  thought,  or  a  word,  does  not  perceptibly  change,  but  still  it 
changes,  the  morals,  the  art,  the  opinions,  and  the  language 


390 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


391 


I.    i  *" 


of  his  surroundings,  his  people,  and  humanity.  That  there  is 
such  an  inter-relation  between  all  is  seen  from  tlie  fact  that 
no  one  is  wholly  indifferent  to  the  behavior  of  others :  he 
approves  or  disapproves  others'  conduct  as  soon  as  he  wit- 
nesses it,  and  every  judgment  is  the  beginning  of  some  form  of 
interference,  which  furthers  or  retards  such  action.  It  seems 
as  though  every  one  felt :  Whatever  my  fellowman  does  con- 
cerns me,  it  promotes  or  opposes  my  ultimate  ends. 

Is  the  antithesis  between  egoism  and  altruism  therefore 
meaningless  ?  Is  there  no  difference  in  acts  and  motives, 
which  gives  rise  to  this  division? 

I  do  not,  of  course,  claim  that.  Cases  unquestionably  arise, 
in  which  individual  interests  conflict,  or  seem  to  conflict,  with 
foreign  interests.  Acts  doubtless  occur  in  which  the  individ- 
ual seeks  his  own  advantage  at  the  expense  of  others'  welfare, 
and  conversely,  there  are  acts  in  which  individual  interests  and 
inclinations  are  sacrificed  for  the  welfare  of  others  ;  from  which 
it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  individual  welfare,  if  we  take 
the  word  in  its  profoundest  meaning,  is  promoted  in  the  former 
instance  and  retarded  in  the  latter.  And  it  cannot  be  disputed 
that  these  facts  have  great  moral  significance.  The  above  re- 
flections simply  desire  to  show  that  the  opposition  between  in- 
dividual and  general  welfare,  selfish  and  altruistic  motives,  is 
not  the  rule,  but  the  exception.  As  a  rule,  there  is  harmony 
in  the  effects  as  well  as  in  the  motives.  Life  is  not  such  an 
antagonistic  affair  as  some  moralists  make  it  appear :  it  is 
not  one  constant  struggle  between  mine  and  thine.  No  hu- 
man life,  perhaps,  is  wholly  free  from  conflict,  but  there  are 
many  lives  in  which  it  plays  no  prominent  part.  Persons  who 
enjoy  healthy  domestic  relations  and  live  in  well-regulated 
communities,  and  pursue  honorable  and  regular  callings,  do 
not  experience  many  such  conflicts,  nor  do  they  by  any  means 
believe  that  the  altruistic  settlement  of  such  conflicts  forms 
the  essential  content  of  their  life,  and  determines  its  moral 
worth. 


4.  And  how  are  such  cases  to  be  judged  morally  ?  Is  the 
sacrifice  of  individual  interests  for  those  of  others  always 
a  duty,  or,  if  not  a  real  duty,  at  least  praiseworthy  and  good  ? 
Schopenhauer  believes  that  it  is,  and  popular  usage  seems 
to  confirm  his  view :  language,  which  has  created  the  words 
kindness  and  malice,  self-interest  and  selfishness,  suggests  it. 
The  matter  does  not  seem  so  simple  upon  closer  analysis.  It 
has  been  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  not  every  act  whicli 
springs  from  the  impulse  to  do  good  to  others,  is  really  benefi- 
cent ;  the  altruistic  intention  does  not  guarantee  a  beneficent 
effect.  There  are  many  forms  of  "  beneficence  "  which  pro- 
duce evil ;  indeed,  there  are  many  people  who  are  so  infinitely 
"  good  "  that  no  one  is  benefited  thereby,  and  every  one  who 
comes  under  their  influence  is  spoiled.  Kindness  ( Gate)  with- 
out wisdom  is  not  good  but  pernicious,  as  pernicious  as  any 
undisciplined  natural  impulse.  In  his  Timon  Shakespeare 
has  portrayed  with  cruel  fidelity  the  effects  of  kindness  that 
is  not  governed  by  reason.  Consequently,  the  mere  fact  that 
desires  are  altruistically  inclined,  by  no  means  makes  them 
morally  good,  much  less  the  only  moral  good. 

Moreover,  can  we  grant  that  the  sacrifice  of  personal  in- 
terests, even  when  it  really  promotes  the  welfare  of  others,  is 
invariably  meritorious  and  praiseworthy,  or  even  a  duty  ?  I 
do  not  believe  it.  Ought  I,  in  order  to  give  others  a  little 
pleasure,  to  ignore  my  own  important  and  essential  interests  ? 
Ought  I  to  sacrifice  my  possessions,  health,  and  life  in  order 
to  fulfil  a  sick  man's  harmless  whims,  and  to  lighten  his  lot  ? 
Is  that  my  duty,  or,  if  not  my  duty,  always  meritorious  or  praise- 
worthy ?  Ought  I  to  look  upon  the  promotion  of  my  family's 
welfare  as  selfish  ?  Ought  I  to  deny  to  my  brother,  or  to  my 
child,  that  which  would  prove  of  great  value  to  him,  but  could 
not  be  realized  without  in  a  measure  interfering  with  the 
desire  of  another  ?  The  unprejudiced  man  will  not  hesitate 
for  a  moment,  but  will  say  :  On  the  contrary,  my  kith  and  kin 
are  nearer  to  me  than  strangers,  and  it  is  not  a  duty,  but  a 


y 


392 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


393 


l\       ■■' 


''.'•.* 

■'H' 


violation  of  duty,  to  neglect  their  welfare  in  order  to  gratify 
the  wishes  of  others.  Therefore,  we  may  say,  the  sacrifice 
of  individual  desires  and  interests  is  not  good  in  itself,  but 
only  in  case  the  vital  interests  of  others  demand  it :  whoever 
risks  his  life  to  save  another's,  whoever  sacrifices  himself  for 
his  people,  will  be  admired  and  praised  ;  conversely,  whoever 
allows  a  fellow  man  miserably  to  perish  rather  than  sacrifice 
his  comforts  or  a  pleasure,  is  condemned  as  selfish  and 
hardhearted. 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  our  judgment  depends  upon  our 
estimate  of  the  objective  value  of  the  ends.  Can  we, 
then,  making  this  our  starting-point,  set  up  as  the  universal 
norm  for  deciding  between  the  interests  of  self  and  of  others : 
The  greater  interest  universally  takes  precedence  over  the 
smaller  interest,  regardless  of  whether  my  interest  or  that  of 
others  is  the  greater?  Universal istic  utilitarianism  seems  to 
hit  upon  this  standard:  If  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number  is  the  absolute  end,  and  if  the  objective  worth 
of  acts  is  measured  by  their  pleasure-producing  qualities,  then 
the  sacrifice  of  personal  happiness  is  necessary  whenever  it 
brings  greater  happiness  to  others,  and  inadmissible  whenever 
it  brings  less  or  no  happiness  to  others. 

Perhaps  the  universal  formula  can  stand  as  such.  In  order 
to  guard  it  against  misconceptions,  it  will  be  necessary,  how- 
ever, to  define  it  more  accurately.  Above  all,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  happiness  or  welfare  is  not  like  a  coin  that 
may  be  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  Happiness  is  the  result  of 
successful  action  ;  it  cannot  therefore  be  bestowed  upon  a  man 
as  a  gift,  —  he  must  work  for  it.  All  that  another  can  do  is 
to  provide  him  with  the  external  means  of  realizing  it,  that  is, 
to  lend  him  occasional  assistance.  This  at  once  shows  that  the 
formula  is  not  suited  to  solve  mere  problems  in  arithmetic. 
It  will  never  be  possible  to  calculate  what  direction  my  altru- 
istic deeds  must  take  at  any  particular  moment  in  order  to 
y^eld  the    maximum  of  happiness.      Here   moral    tact  will 


always  have  to  decide.  This  tact,  however,  cannot  be  guided 
so  much  by  balancing  the  objective  magnitude  of  the  interests 
involved  as  by  a  kind  of  natural  hierarchy  of  ends.  First  in 
importance  are  the  duties  which  my  position  and  calling  in 
life  impose  upon  me ;  next  come  the  duties  which  my  par- 
ticular relations  to  others  impose  upon  me ;  and  then  those 
depending  upon  occasional  relations  to  people  in  general. 
Even  though  the  interests  of  the  latter  may  in  themselves  be 
greater,  my  action  is  invariably  partially  influenced  and,  as 
a  rule,  determined  by  their  distance  from  the  ego,  the  centre 
of  my  activity.  It  is  evident  that  our  conduct  is  actually  guided 
by  such  considerations  ;  every  ego,  we  might  say,  arranges  all 
other  egoes  around  it  in  concentric  circles ;  the  farther  away 
the  interests  from  this  centre,  the  less  weight  and  motive  force 
they  possess.  That  is  a  law  of  psychical  mechanics.  Its 
teleological  necessity  is  obvious :  if  the  different  interests 
were  to  influence  us  according  to  their  objective  value,  it 
would  lead  to  the  most  curious  confusion  in  our  natures.  A 
corresponding  confusion  in  our  actions  would  render  the  latter 
utterly  fruitless ;  the  eflicacy  of  all  aid  generally  decreases 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  distance  between  the  giver  and  the 
recipient. 

This  view  does  not,  of  course,  deny  that  remote  interests 
may,  under  certain  circumstances,  necessitate  the  sacrifice  of 
nearer  interests.  No  life  is  too  precious  when  it  comes  to  pre- 
serving the  life  and  freedom  of  a  people.  And  this  is  right. 
The  interests  of  justice  and  of  truth  may  demand  and  justify 
the  sacrifice  of  domestic  happiness.  And  we  shall  praise  the 
mercy  of  the  good  Samaritan,  who,  without  thinking  of  his  own 
interests  and  safety,  hastened  to  the  rescue  of  the  man  who 
had  fallen  among  thieves :  at  that  moment  he  was  indeed  that 
man's  nearest  friend  ;  he  was  able  to  help  him,  and  he  alone 
was  able  to  help  him.  But  the  rule  still  holds  that  those 
nearest  to  us  are  dearest  to  us.  Charity  begins  at  homey  says 
a  good  old  English  proverb. 


394 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND   ALTRUISM 


395 


5.  Let  me  add  a  few  words  concerning  the  attitude  of  the 
theory  of  evolution  to  the  antithesis  of  egoism  and  altruism. 

It  is  claimed  that  a  system  of  moral  philosophy  which  is  based 
upon  the  theory  of  evolution  cannot  explain  the  social  virtues. 
Natural  selection  may,  perhaps,  develop  strength,  shrewdness, 
and  energy  in  the  pursuit  of  selfish  interests,  but  it  can  never 
produce  self-denial,  and  still  less  self-sacrifice.  Nay,  the  more 
selfishly  an  individual  asserts  his  own  interests,  the  stronger 
he  must  be,  other  things  being  equal ;  and  natural  selection 
will  necessarily  produce  such  types.  Moreover,  evolutionistic 
ethics  must  regard  these  types  as  best  adapted  to  the  surround- 
ings, and  must  approve  of  their  development :  the  most  selfish 
egoism  gives  the  individual  the  greatest  power  to  assert  his 
claims,  and  therefore  the  greatest  perfection.^ 

Our  answer  is :  This  would  be  the  case  if  men  lived  in 
isolation.  But  they  live  and,  as  human  beings,  can  live  only  in 
societies  and  communities,  in  tribes  and  nations.  Beasts  of 
prey  live  in  isolation,  at  least  most  of  them,  and  here  we  actu- 
ally find  the  type  mentioned  above.  That,  however,  which 
has  given  man  such  an  immense  advantage  over  all  other  liv- 
ing creatures,  even  over  the  strongest  and  fiercest  brutes,  is 
his  peculiar  fitness  for  collective  life  and  collective  activity, 
to  which  are  due  the  development  of  language  and  intelligence, 
and  likewise  the  invention  of  tools.  The  union  of  many  indi- 
viduals for  purposes  of  concentrated  effort  produces  powerful 
effects.  Hence  sociahleness  becomes  a  life-preserving  quality, 
like  the  qualities  upon  which  it  depends,  such  as  loyalty  and 
fidelity  to  companions,  devotion  and  obedience  to  leaders,  even 
at  the  sacrifice  of  individual  interests,  nay  of  life  itself.  These 
qualities,  in  turn,  are  deeply  and  firmly  rooted  in  the  indivi- 
dual's feelings  of  attachment  and  piety  to  the  social  whole  and 
in  his  affection  for  all  its  members.  Hence  all  these  qualities 
tend  to  preserve  the  life  of  a  social  being,  and  can  therefore  be 
developed  by  natural  selection.     They  will  be  exercised  and 

1  [See  Huxley,  Evolution  and  Ethics;  Kidd,  Social  Evolution.  — Tr.] 


developed  especially  in  the  struggle  for  existence  which  the 
tribes  are  constantly  waging  with  each  other ;  man  is  man's 
most  dangerous  foe.  Hence  the  more  fiercely  the  tribes 
struggle  for  their  interests,  power,  and  existence,  the  stronger 
the  pressure  is  from  without,  the  more  essential  and  the  firmer 
becomes  the  internal  union.  Disobedience,  selfishness,  dis- 
loyalty, and  cowardice  are  condemned  most  severely  and 
eliminated  most  thoroughly  when  the  tribe  is  threatened  by 
an  enemy;  whereas  external  peace  tends  somewhat  to  loosen 
the  internal  union.  In  times  of  peace  there  arises  a  desire  for 
individual  liberty,  an  inclination  to  advance  selfish  interests, 
to  obtain  advantages  over  companions,  in  short,  the  calculating 
commercial  spirit.  So  long  as  the  tribe  exists  pre-eminently 
for  battle,  it  will  not  permit  such  inclinations  to  show  them- 
selves, and  will  ruthlessly  suppress  them  whenever  they  arise. 
We  therefore  find  the  social  instincts  unusually  well  developed 
upon  primitive  stages  of  civilization.  The  individual  lives  only 
as  the  member  of  a  tribe  or  city ;  he  cannot,  nor  does  he  care 
to,  live  outside.  Piety,  loyalty,  and  courage  are  the  virtues 
extolled  by  the  heroic  ages. 

Let  us  now  consider  Herbert  Spencer's  view  that  the  altru- 
istic or  social  impulses  are  constantly  growing  at  the  expense 
of  the  egoistic  impulses.  He  shows  in  his  Data  of  Ethics  ^ 
that  human  nature  more  completely  adjusts  itself  to  the  con- 
ditions of  social  life.  Wars  become  less  frequent,  hence  the 
militant  instincts,  which  are  adapted  to  the  natural  state  of 
the  war  of  all  against  all,  gradually  disappear ;  the  social 
instincts  take  their  place,  the  militant  type  gives  way  to  the 
industrial  type,  the  type  produced  by  peaceful  co-operation. 
Spencer  refers  to  his  great  biological  generalization,  accord- 
ing to  which,  "  altruistic  labors  on  behalf  of  the  young  in- 
crease with  a  decreasing  sacrifice  of  parental  lives  to  the  lives 
of  offspring."  He  therefore  expects  altruism  to  attain  a  level 
"such   that  the  ministration   to   others'  happiness   will  be- 

1  [Chapter  XIV.] 


I- 
[I  'I 

I  HI 


396 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


397 


iti; ' 


I: 

pi''" 


come  a  daily  need,  a  level  such  that  the  lower  egoistic 
satisfactions  will  be  continually  subordinated  to  this  higher 
egoistic  satisfaction.''  Simultaneously  with  the  progress  of 
crvilization,  natural  sufferings  and  privations  of  all  kinds 
become  less  frequent,  and  altruism  gradually  ceases  to  be 
compassion  and  self-sacrifice  and  assumes  the  form  of  sym- 
pathetic gratification,  "  which  costs  the  receiver  nothing,  but 
is  a  gratis  addition  to  his  egoistic  gratifications."  Indeed, 
Spencer  is  occupied  with  the  thought  that  the  desire  for  altruis- 
tic satisfactions  may  at  some  future  time  become  so  strong 
that  each  may  insist  on  taking  an  undue  share  of  them ;  but, 
he  hopes,  "altruistic  competition,  first  reaching  a  com- 
promise under  which  each  restrains  himself  from  taking  an 
undue  share  of  altruistic  satisfactions,  eventually  rises  to  a 
conciliation,  under  which  each  takes  care  that  others  shall 
have  their  opportunities  for  altruistic  satisfactions." 

Spencer  adds  that  he  does  not  expect  that  these  conclusions 
will  meet  with  any  considerable  acceptance,  or  that  those  "  who 
profess  Christianity  and  practise  paganism  "  can  feel  sympathy 
with  such  a  view.  Even  at  the  risk  of  being  reckoned  among 
the  latter,  I  cannot  refrain  from  recording  my  objections. 

Spencer  bases  his  expectations  of  the  future  upon  the  past 
course  of  development,  which  is  their  only  possible  ground. 
His  idea  of   this  evolution,  however,  seems   to   me   to  be 
one-sided.    He  overlooks  a  fact,  of  which  he  is,  of  course, 
usually  aware,  that  war  is  a  strongly  socializing  force ;  sim- 
ultaneously  with    the  hostile    instincts    it   produces    social 
instincts.     Civilization,  which  makes  wars  less  frequent,  weak- 
ens the  militant  instincts,  on  the  one  hand,  and  loosens  the 
internal   unity  on   the   other.     Spencer   describes   historical 
development  as  a  progressive  socialization,  in  which  there  is 
a    gradual    abatement    of  war.     Something    like    this    un- 
doubtedly occurs;  we  no  longer  live,  like  the  Indian,  with 
weapons  constantly  in  our  hands ;  and  economic  labor  is  be- 
coming more  and  more   differentiated  and   organized.     We 


also  have  the  right  to  assume  that  human  nature  will  adapt 
itself  to  these  changes  in  the  conditions  of  life,  that  it  will 
become  better  fitted  for  social  labor.  The  Germans  who 
fought  against  Marius  and  Caesar,  two  thousand  years  ago, 
could  hardly  work  side  by  side  with  their  modern  descendants 
in  the  factory  or  the  counting  room.  But  we  should  not 
identify  fitness  for  collective  life  with  altruistic  feelings  ;  men 
may  work  together  constantly  without  experiencing  feelings 
of  brotherly  love :  their  feelings  may  be  intensely  egoistic.  I 
believe  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  feelings  of  distrust,  hatred, 
and  envy  are  much  more  common  in  our  industrial  society  than 
they  were  among  the  old  German  peasants  :  among  the  latter 
competition,  forgery,  fraud,  speculation,  friction  between  labor- 
ers and  employers,  were  unheard  of ;  every  household  formed 
an  essentially  separate  economic  unity.  The  more  complicated 
the  co-operation,  the  greater  the  opportunity  for  friction. 
Where  shall  we  find  the  most  collisions :  among  a  group  of 
officials,  teachers,  and  clergymen,  or  among  a  group  of  peas- 
ants or  a  company  of  soldiers  ?  No  one  will  be  in  doubt  as 
to  his  answer.  Of  course,  I  do  not  wish  to  deny  that,  whereas 
in  a  peasant  village  men  are  rather  indifferent  to  each  other, 
feelings  of  respect,  devotion,  and  friendship  are,  if  not  more 
frequent,  at  least  more  intense  in  particular  cases,  among 
the  former  group ;  all  I  mean  to  say  is  that  the  personal 
relations  existing  between  the  members  are  more  pronounced 
in  every  direction :  there  is  greater  enmity  and  disrespect  on 
the  one  side  and  more  friendship  and  confidence  on  the 
other. 

Spencer  appeals  to  the  evolution  of  domestic  relations  in 
support  of  his  view.  I  believe  these  relations  show  the  same 
characteristics ;  they"  are  more  pronounced  in  every  way. 
Families  are  now  living  together  in  much  closer  union  than 
was  possible  in  primitive  times ;  but  there  are  also  families 
among  whose  members  discord  and  mutual  hatred  prevail 
to  a  degree  absolutely  unknown  to  primitive  ages.     This   is 


398 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


quite  natural,  for  the  more  marked  the  individualities,  the 
more  intensely  will  they  attract  and  repel  each  other.  How 
happily  and  indifferently  the  animals  dwell  together  in  the 

herd ! 

The  same  is  true  of  the  relations  existing  between  the 
different  nations.  True,  peace  seems  to  be  the  permanent 
condition  of  civilized  nations,  war  an  interruption,  while 
among  savage  tribes  the  permanent  condition  is  war.  But 
by  the  side  of  the  bloody  and  destructive  wars  of  the  former, 
the  conflicts  of  the  latter  seem  like  child's  play.  Will  wars 
disappear?  Spencer  anticipates  that  they  will.  But  will 
nations  cease  desiring  power,  honor,  advantages,  and  fame, 
at  each  other's  expense?  I  fear,  not  until  they  cease  to 
prefer  their  existence  to  the  existence  of  others,  that  is,  not 
until  they  cease  to  exist.  Perhaps  the  nations  will  cease 
to  be  what  they  now  are  ;  it  seems  idle,  however,  to  speculate 
upon  what  will  happen  then,  what  new  historical  forms  of  life 
will  take  their  place,  and  what  relation  these  will  bear  to 
each  other. 

Is  Spencer's  error  —  supposing  that  the  dream  of  eternal 
peace  is  an  illusion  —  a  useful  error  ?  Perhaps  some  will  be 
inclined  to  believe  that  it  is ;  that  it  gives  us  strength  and 
courage  to  labor  for  the  future.  It  may  do  this  for  partic- 
ular individuals,  although  such  remote  considerations  can 
hardly  -exercise  a  great  influence  upon  human  feeling  and 
action.  We  love  and  hate,  desire  and  despise,  things  that  are 
near  us.  It  may  also  have  another  effect :  it  may  make  us 
discontented  with  and  unjust  to  the  past  and  the  present. 
Spencer  does  not  always  seem  to  be  free  from  this  fault. 
Just  as  his  great  biological  generalizations  not  infrequently 
blind  him  to  the  manifoldness  of  historical  reality,  so  his  fan- 
tastic optimistic  view  of  the  future  renders  him  incapable  of 
understanding  and  appreciating  the  past.  Even  if  the  future 
should  be  blessed  with  perfect  happiness  and  virtue,  the  past 
generations  might  still  maintain  —  if  they  could  defend  their 


EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM 


399 


cause  —  that  their  mode  of  life  was  not  only  the  best  for 
them,  but  also  that  it  forms  a  stage  in  the  development  of 
humanity  and  possesses  value  in  itself,  just  as  the  age  of 
boyhood  and  youth  with  its  games,  its  pleasures,  and  ideals 
has  an  independent  value  for  the  life  of  the  individual.  Let 
the  "industrial  type"  have  its  happiness  and  its  admirers, 
but  let  the  "  militant  type  "  also  receive  its  due !  Perhaps 
Achilles  and  Alexander  will  still  find  admirers  in  the  world 
of  the  perfectly  just  and  benevolent  cotton-spinners.  Or 
will  this  be  possible  only  so  long  as  man  has  something  of 
the  brute  nature  in  him  ?  But  it  is  not  even  certain  that  the 
brutes  are  most  admired  by  the  brutes. 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS 


401 


CHAPTER  VII 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS 


I  SHOULD  like  to  present  the  views  which  I  have  expressed 
at  random  in  the  foregoing  pages,  on  the  relation  between 
virtue  and  welfare,  in  connected  form.  We  may  consider  the 
subject  from  two  points  of  view:  (1)  What  influence  has 
virtue  upon  happiness  ?  (2)  What  is  the  effect  of  happiness 
upon  character  ? 

1.   The  first  great  and  fundamental   truth  to  which   all 
peoples  have  been  led  in  their  reflections  upon  moral  matters  is 
the  truth  that  the  good  man  fares  well  and  the  wicked  man  ill. 
This  conviction,  which  represents  the  experiences  of  the  race, 
is  expressed  in  countless  proverbs.    L.  Schmidt  has  made  an 
exhaustive   collection   of  such   proverbs  and  passages  from 
Greek  literature  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  work  on  the  Ethics 
of  the  Greeks.     "  It  was  firmly  believed  by  the  ancient  Greeks," 
so  he  begins  his  work,  '<  that  the  fates  of  men  were  controlled 
by  stern  justice,  which  rewards  the  good  and  punishes  the 
bad."     He   shows  that  this  thought,  which   remained   the 
fundamental  theme  of  Greek  poetry  and  history,  already  per- 
vaded the  Homeric  poems.     The  administration  of  justice  and 
the  fates  of  men  are  in  the  hands  of  the  gods,  or  rather  of 
the  divine  principle,  for  the  gods  as  individuals  are,  at  least 
for  the  poet,  full  of  human  moods  and  feelings ;  whereas  the 
gods  of  popular  faith  are  essentially  the  guardians  of  justice 
and  morals.     They  punish  the  evil-doer  who  breaks  his  oath, 
violates  piety   or  the  laws  of  hospitality,  they  pursue  the 
murderer  until  his  crime  is  avenged.    To  be  sure,  vengeance 


is  often  delayed,  perhaps  it  first  strikes  the  descendants  of 
the  criminal,  or  it  may  not  overtake  the  victim,  according  to 
the  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  souls  and  the  judgment  of 
the  dead,  which  came  from  the  Orient,  until  in  the  hereafter. 
But  no  evil-doer  escapes  punishment.  The  good  man,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  favorite  of  the  gods.  They  protect  him 
and  his  own  against  evil,  and  permit  him  to  complete  his  life 
in  happiness  and  without  sin.  In  the  concept  of  the  God- 
loved  one  (6eo(\>iX'n<0  the  notions  of  piety,  philanthropy,  and 
divine  favor  are  inseparably  interwoven. 

We  discover  the  same  fundamental  note  in  the  historical 
and  poetical  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  historical  books 
show  how  the  Lord  makes  good  the  promises  and  threats 
with  which  He  accompanied  the  laws,  in  the  lives  of  the  in- 
dividuals and  of  the  people.  In  the  Psalms,  too,  the  righteous- 
ness, faithfulness,  and  truth  or  trustworthiness  of  God 
are  a  subject  of  praise :  He  does  not  forsake  the  righteous 
who  keep  His  commandments,  but  rewards  their  children  and 
their  children's  children  for  their  obedience.  The  righteous 
man,  too,  suffers,  but  the  Lord  does  not  forsake  him,  nay,  the 
sufferings  themselves  turn  into  blessings;  the  ungodly,  on 
the  other  hand,  perish;  the  wages  of  sin  is  death. 

The  theoretical  development  of  this  thought  forms  the  con- 
tent of  Greek  moral  philosophy.  Virtue  and  happiness  are 
connected,  not  merely  accidentally,  through  the  mediation 
of  the  gods,  but  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  The  concep- 
tion of  happiness,  however,  is  spiritualized ;  not  external 
happiness  or  good  fortune  (evrvx^a),  but  internal  happiness, 
peace  and  repose  of  spirit,  is  directly  joined  with  the  exer- 
cise of  virtue,  or  follows  as  its  necessary  effect.  External 
welfare  does  not  always  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  wise  and  vir- 
tuous man ;  but  virtue  tends  to  realize  this  also ;  and  in 
case  he  does  not  obtain  it  he  is  sure  of  finding  happiness 
in  his  own  heart.     This  is  also  the  prevailing  sentiment  in 

modern    ethics.     Hobbes   and    Spinoza,   Leibniz    and   Wolff, 

26 


402 


CONCEPTS   AND   PRINCIPLES 


Shaftesbury  and  Hume,  all  attempt  to  point  out  the  neces- 
sary connection  between  righteousness  and  welfare.  They, 
too,  regard  as  their  cardinal  doctrine  the  proposition  that 
good  conduct  has  welfare,  bad  conduct,  misfortune  as  its  natu- 
ral consequence.  Virtue,  welfare,  honor,  and  inner  peace  go 
together  as  well  as  vice,  misery,  disgrace,  and  inner  dis- 
cord. This  is  especially  true  of  the  two  extremes :  virtue  and 
inner  peace,  vice  and  inner  discord.  The  two  middle  terms 
of  the  series  are  not  so  constant. 

A  pessimistic  conception  runs  parallel  with  this  view  of  the 
relation  of  virtue  and  happiness  which  may  be  called  the 
optimistic  view :   The  evil-doer  is  the  very  one  who  fares 
well ;  fortune  favors  him ;  while  the  good  man  fares  ill.     It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  gather  a  considerable   number   of 
examples  from  the  literature  and  the  proverbs  of  nations, 
all  of  which  aim  to  show  that  the  wicked  man  succeeds 
better  in  the  world  with  his  evil  arts  than  the  man   who 
pursues  the  path  of  truth  and  justice.     Strategy  and  vio- 
lence, the  latter  against  the  weaker,  the  former  against  the 
stronger,  are  the  means  by  which  men  rise  and  maintain 
themselves.    The  old  fable  of  Renard  the  fox,  which  Goethe 
once  called  a  profane  world-bible,  illustrates  this :  the  lion  and 
the  fox,  violence  and  strategy,  control  affairs,  they  are  the  king 
and  the  chancellor;  the  honest  ram  and  the  innocent  hare, 
the  straightforward  bear  and  the  inexperienced  wolf,  always 
get  the  worst  of  the  bargain.  —  And  the  other  bible,  that  is, 
the  Bible  of  the  New  Testament,  does  not  seem  to  contradict 
this  farcical  animal  bible.     It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions  of  primitive  Christianity  that  the  just  must  suffer 
much  for  the  sake   of  justice  and  truth.     Like  the  master, 
the   disciples   must   endure   many   sufferings,  disgrace,  and 

persecution. 

Which  of  these  two  views  is  the  correct  one  ?  Is  the  truth  of 
the  first  overthrown  by  that  of  the  second?  I  do  not  think  so. 

The  sporadic  pessimistic  moods  which  now  and  then  take 


VIRTUE   AND   HAPPINESS 


403 


possession  of  every  nation  and  every  individual,  may  perhaps 
be  explained  as  follows,  and  reconciled  with  the  optimistic 
view.  It  is,  of  course,  an  undeniable  fact  that  the  good 
do  not  always  fare  well  outwardly.  A  man  may  become 
sick,  even  though  he  is  temperate  and  prudent,  and,  con- 
versely, a  man  who  has  no  regard  for  his  health  may  re- 
main hale  and  hearty.  An  able  and  honest  man  may  fail  in 
spite  of  all  his  exertions,  and  a  scoundrel  may  accumulate 
wealth  by  dishonest  means.  Frankness  often  draws  upon 
us  the  hatred  of  the  mighty,  and  flattery  gains  their  favor.  — 
But  the  very  fact  that  such  occurrences  attract  so  much  at- 
tention and  arouse  such  indignation  seems  to  indicate  that 
they  are  not  the  rule,  but  the  exception.  No  one  is 
surprised  to  hear  of  the  ruin  of  a  frivolous  and  reckless 
fellow ;  we  say  it  is  as  it  should  be,  and  forget  the  incident. 
But  when  a  sensible  and  honest  man  is  destroyed  by  all 
kinds  of  misfortunes,  while  the  former  prospers,  it  seems  to 
be  contrary  to  the  nature  of  things,  and  we  console  our- 
selves with  the  general  statement  that  ill  weeds  grow  apace ; 
or,  fools  are  lucky.  When  an  honest  man  wins  the  confi- 
dence of  his  surroundings,  and  the  scoundrel  is  unmasked 
and  disgraced,  everybody  regards  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
When,  however,  a  man  grazes  the  penitentiary  and  gets  his 
millions  into  a  safe  place,  we  become  excited,  and  the  matter 
is  discussed  for  months.  Everybody  recalls  similar  cases, 
and  so  at  last  the  verdict  is  rendered :  "  Well,  that 's  the 
way  of  the  world !  " 

Here,  too,  the  exception  proves  the  rule.  These  cases 
would  not  cause  such  excitement  if  they  were  not  contrary 
to  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  the  rule  that  honest  labor  is  a 
surer  road  to  economic  welfare  than  fraud  and  dishonesty ; 
that  sincerity  and  truthfulness  arouse  confidence ;  that  false- 
hood and  deception  are  poor  means  of  making  friends ;  in 
short,  that  virtue  is  approved  before  God  and  man,  and  that 
vice  is  despised  and  condemned. 


402 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


Shaftesbury  and  Hume,  all  attempt  to  point  out  the  neces- 
sary connection  between  righteousness  and  welfare.  They, 
too,  regard  as  their  cardinal  doctrine  the  proposition  that 
good  conduct  has  welfare,  bad  conduct,  misfortune  as  its  natu- 
ral consequence.  Virtue,  welfare,  honor,  and  inner  peace  go 
together  as  well  as  vice,  misery,  disgrace,  and  inner  dis- 
cord. This  is  especially  true  of  the  two  extremes :  virtue  and 
inner  peace,  vice  and  inner  discord.  The  two  middle  terms 
of  the  series  are  not  so  constant. 

A  pessimistic  conception  runs  parallel  with  this  view  of  the 
relation  of  virtue  and  happiness  which   may  be  called  the 
optimistic  view:   The   evil-doer  is   the  very  one  who  fares 
well ;  fortune  favors  him ;  while  the  good  man  fares  ill.     It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  gather  a  considerable  number  of 
examples  from  the  literature  and  the  proverbs  of  nations, 
all   of   which   aim  to   show  that  the  wicked  man   succeeds 
better  in  the  world  with  his  evil  arts  than  the  man   who 
pursues  the  path  of  truth  and  justice.     Strategy  and  vio- 
lence, the  latter  against  the  weaker,  the  former  against  the 
stronger,  are  the  means  by  which  men  rise  and   maintain 
themselves.    The  old  fable  of  Renard  the  fox,  which  Goethe 
once  called  a  profane  world-bible,  illustrates  this :  the  lion  and 
the  fox,  violence  and  strategy,  control  affairs,  they  are  the  king 
and  the  chancellor;  the  honest  ram  and  the  innocent  hare, 
the  straightforward  bear  and  the  inexperienced  wolf,  always 
get  the  worst  of  the  bargain.  —  And  the  other  bible,  that  is, 
the  Bible  of  the  New  Testament,  does  not  seem  to  contradict 
this  farcical  animal  bible.     It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions  of  primitive  Christianity  that  the  just  must  suffer 
much  for  the  sake   of  justice  and  truth.     Like  the  master, 
the   disciples   must  endure   many   sufferings,  disgrace,  and 

persecution. 

Which  of  these  two  views  is  the  correct  one  ?  Is  the  truth  of 
the  first  overthrown  by  that  of  the  second?   I  do  not  think  so. 

The  sporadic  pessimistic  moods  which  now  and  then  take 


VIRTUE   AND  HAPPINESS 


403 


possession  of  every  nation  and  every  individual,  may  perhaps 
be  explained  as  follows,  and  reconciled  with  the  optimistic 
view.  It  is,  of  course,  an  undeniable  fact  that  the  good 
do  not  always  fare  well  outwardly.  A  man  may  become 
sick,  even  though  he  is  temperate  and  prudent,  and,  con- 
versely, a  man  who  has  no  regard  for  his  health  may  re- 
main hale  and  hearty.  An  able  and  honest  man  may  fail  in 
spite  of  all  his  exertions,  and  a  scoundrel  may  accumulate 
wealth  by  dishonest  means.  Frankness  often  draws  upon 
us  the  hatred  of  the  mighty,  and  flattery  gains  their  favor.  — 
But  the  very  fact  that  such  occurrences  attract  so  much  at- 
tention and  arouse  such  indignation  seems  to  indicate  that 
they  are  not  the  rule,  but  the  exception.  No  one  is 
surprised  to  hear  of  the  ruin  of  a  frivolous  and  reckless 
fellow ;  we  say  it  is  as  it  should  be,  and  forget  the  incident. 
But  when  a  sensible  and  honest  man  is  destroyed  by  all 
kinds  of  misfortunes,  while  the  former  prospers,  it  seems  to 
be  contrary  to  the  nature  of  things,  and  we  console  our- 
selves with  the  general  statement  that  ill  weeds  grow  apace ; 
or,  fools  are  lucky.  When  an  honest  man  wins  the  confi- 
dence of  his  surroundings,  and  the  scoundrel  is  unmasked 
and  disgraced,  everybody  regards  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
When,  however,  a  man  grazes  the  penitentiary  and  gets  his 
millions  into  a  safe  place,  we  become  excited,  and  the  matter 
is  discussed  for  months.  Everybody  recalls  similar  cases, 
and  so  at  last  the  verdict  is  rendered :  "  Well,  that 's  the 
way  of  the  world !  " 

Here,  too,  the  exception  proves  the  rule.  These  cases 
would  not  cause  such  excitement  if  they  were  not  contrary 
to  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  the  rule  that  honest  labor  is  a 
surer  road  to  economic  welfare  than  fraud  and  dishonesty ; 
that  sincerity  and  truthfulness  arouse  confidence ;  that  false- 
hood and  deception  are  poor  means  of  making  friends ;  in 
short,  that  virtue  is  approved  before  God  and  man,  and  that 
vice  is  despised  and  condemned. 


404 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


There  is,  however,  an  important  exception  to  the  last  rule  : 
among  the  vicious  virtue  does  not  beget  love,  but  hatred. 
The  shameless  strumpet  hates  the  virtuous  maiden ;  the  very 
existence  of  the  latter  is  a  reproach  to  her,  she  seeks  her  re- 
venge in  ridicule,  calumny,  and  whatever  her  hatred  may  prompt 
her  to  do.  It  is  the  greatest  source  of  satisfaction  to  her  to 
drag  her  innocent  sister  down  to  her  own  disgraceful  level,  for 
it  sUences  reproach.  This  explains  the  awful  impulse  to  lead 
others  into  temptation  which  is  so  common  to  vice.  So,  too, 
the  flatterer  and  place-hunter  hates  the  honest  and  truthful 
man,  who  goes  through  life  with  his  head  erect ;  he  imagines 
that  the  latter  watches,  sees  through,  and  despises  him. 

Should  vice  ever  gain  the  ascendency  in  society,  virtue 
would  no  longer  be  attractive ;  it  would  arouse  among  most 
men,  if  not  contempt,  at  least  hatred  and  aversion.  And 
since  the  vices  cannot  make  those  who  possess  them  agree- 
able in  the  sight  of  men  —  for  virtue  is  agreeable  to  the  vir- 
tuous, but  vice  is  not  esteemed  by  the  vicious,  especially  not 
social  vice  —  a  feeling  of  universal  hatred  would  take  pos- 
session of  society.  Such  a  condition  is  foretold  in  the  re- 
markable lines  of  Hesiod's  pessimistically-colored  poem, 
Works  and  Days : 

Nor  sire  with  son,  with  brethren  brethren  blend, 
Nor  host  with  guest,  nor  friend,  as  erst,  with  friend: 
Reckless  of  heaven's  revenge,  the  sons  behold 

The  hoary  parents  wax  too  swiftly  old ; 
'  And  impious  point  the  keen  dishonoring  tongue, 

:  With  hard  reproofs  and  bitter  mockeries  hung : 

Nor  grateful  in  declining  age  repay 

The  nurturing  fondness  of  their  better  day. 

Now  man's  right  hand  is  law :  for  spoil  they  wait, 

And  lay  their  mutual  cities  desolate : 

Unhonored  he  by  whom  his  oath  is  feared ; 

Nor  are  the  good  beloved,  the  just  revered : 

With  favor  graced  the  evil-doer  stands, 

Nor  curbs  with  shame  nor  equity  his  hands ; 

With  crooked  slanders  wounds  the  virtuous  man. 

And  stamps  with  perjury  what  hate  began. 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS  405 

Lo !  ill-rejoicing  Envy,  wing'd  with  lies, 

Scattering  calumnious  rumors  as  she  flies,  • 

The  steps  of  miserable  men  pursue 

With  haggard  aspect,  blasting  to  the  view.^ 

We  have  here  a  description  of  hell  on  Grecian  soil. 

This  will  help  us  to  understand  the  Christian  conception  of 
the  worldly  success  of  virtue.  The  old  Christian  view  of  the 
world  was  very  much  like  Hesiod's  description.  Compare 
with  the  latter  the  picture  of  the  Graeco-Roman  world  in  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans :  "  Being  filled  with 
all  unrighteousness,  fornication,  wickedness,  covetousness, 
maliciousness  ;  full  of  envy,  murder,  debate,  deceit,  malignity ; 
whisperers,  backbiters,  haters  of  God,  despiteful,  proud, 
boasters,  inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient  to  parents, 
without  understanding,  covenant-breakers,  without  natural 
affection,  implacable,  unmerciful,  who  knowing  the  judgment 
of  God,  that  they  which  commit  such  things  are  worthy  of 
death,  not  only  do  the  same  but  have  pleasure  in  them  that 
do  them."  Entering  the  world  with  such  notions  of  the 
world,  which  they  made  no  endeavor  to  conceal,  the  old 
Christians  could  not,  of  course,  expect  to  please  the  world ; 
they  could  not  hope  for  anything  but  hatred  and  persecution, 
which  did  not  fail  to  overtake  them. 

The  old  Christians  expected  something  else  besides:  the 
end  of  the  world.  They  felt  that  such  human  beings  could 
not  live,  and  did  not  deserve  to  live.  They  were  right:  a 
world  like  the  world  described  by  Hesiod  and  St.  Paul  could 
not  possibly  exist.  But  the  world  did  not  come  to  an  end; 
nay  the  unexpected  has  happened,  and  the  world,  after  ex- 
hausting all  the  means  of  persecution  at  its  command,  has 
in  a  certain  measure  accepted  Christianity  and  preserved  it 
to  the  present  day.  Hence  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that 
the  picture  which  was  painted  of  humanity  could  not  have 
been  an  exact  likeness.    Moreover,  primitive  Christianity  is 

1  [Banks's  translation,  Bohn's  Library,  lines  239  ff.,  p.  345.  —  Tr.J 


406 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


not  always  so  hopelessly  pessimistic:  Christians  are  not 
infrequently  exhorted  to  do  good,  "  that  they  may  see  their 
good  works  and  glorify  their  Father  which  is  in  Heaven." 
And  in  another  place  we  even  read  that  "godliness  is  profit- 
able unto  all  things,  having  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is, 
and  of  that  which  is  to  come,"  ^  a  passage  which,  it  must  be 
confessed,  would,  so  far  as  the  promise  of  this  life  is  con- 
cerned, have  surprised  us  less  in  the  Old  Testament. 

We  must  add,  moreover,  that  afflictions  and  persecutions 
are  not  evils  for  the  Christian  ;  they  are  essential  to  his  per- 
fection ;  nay,  they  cannot  disturb  his  peace  of  mind,  his  godli- 
ness, even  for  a  single  moment.  Persecution  gives  him  the 
blessed  conviction  that  he  is  not  of  this  world,  but  a  child  of 
the  eternal  kingdom  of  God.  And  so  for  him  too,  and  for 
him  especially,  virtue  and  outward  happiness,  or  at  any  rate 
piety  and  inner  blessedness,  are  most  intimately  connected, 
nay  they  are  one  and  the  same,  as  the  word  evai^eia  (  Qott- 
seligJceit")  indicates. 

Here,  too,  then,  we  reach  the  conclusion  that  for  the  truly 
good  man,  for  one  whose  will  is  completely  ruled  by  virtue, 
virtuous  action  is  always  the  greatest  blessing,  even  though  it 
should  not  bring  external  happiness,  and  should  prove  hard 
for  his  sensuous  nature.  Spinoza's  maxim  applies  to  him: 
Beatitudo  non  praemium  virtutis,  sed  virtus  ipsa.  He,  how- 
ever, whose  will  is  not  ruled  by  virtue,  who  does  good  from 
fear  or  calculation,  may  feel  disappointed,  when  the  outward 
success  which  he  hoped  to  realize  from  his  honesty,  temper- 
ance, and  benevolence,  does  not  appear.  To  such  a  person  vir- 
tue seems  to  be  an  unprofitable,  or  at  least  uncertain,  means  of 
happiness,  and  he  utters  pessimistic  complaints,  holding  that 
the  evil-doers  fare  well  and  the  good  fare  ill.  This,  however, 
does  not  mean  that  he  would  have  been  better  satisfied  if  he 
had  reached  by  crooked  means  the  goal  which  he  complains  of 
having  missed  by  fair  means.  —  Hence  the  fact  remains  that 

1  1  Timothy,  IV.,  8. 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS 


407 


there  is  a  universal  inner  relation  between  virtue  and  success  or 
prosperity  or  happiness,  while  the  connection  between  wicked- 
ness and  unhappiness  is  equally  necessary.  We  may  perhaps 
imagine  a  man  who  satisfies  his  desires  without  fear  and 
scruple,  who  enjoys  without  pangs  of  conscience  everything 
that  fortune  offers  him,  and  whom  fortune  favors  during  his 
entire  life;  but  can  there  really  be  such  a  man?  At  all 
events,  it  would  not  be  wise  for  any  one  of  us,  constituted  as 
we  are,  to  follow  his  example.  Even  though  he  should  suc- 
ceed in  everything,  the  hour  may  come  when  he  would  give 
up  all  that  he  has  achieved  to  wipe  out  the  past. 

2.  The  second  question  is :  What  is  the  effect  of  happiness 
upon  character?  By  happiness  QGlilcJc')  we  here  mean  ex- 
ternal happiness  (eurux^a)  :  wealth,  power,  success,  fame, 
honor,  health,  strength,  victory.  What  effect  has  the  pos- 
session or  pursuit  of  these  things  on  character  ? 

Observation  of  human  affairs  has  convinced  all  the  more 
highly  civilized  nations  of  the  second  great  fundamental  truth 
that  happiness,  or  prosperity,  or  good  fortune,  is  a  menace  to 
character,  and  finally  also  to  welfare.  We  mentioned  above, 
as  the  first  maxim  of  Greek  wisdom,  the  proposition  that  the 
good  fare  well  and  the  wicked  ill.  We  may  add  as  the 
second:  Eutuchia  is  not  identical  with  eudcemonia;  un- 
alloyed happiness  is  not  happiness. 

Prosperity  produces  satiety,  a  fat  heart,  as  the  Psalmist 
says.  Such  souls  are  filled  with  pride,  and  pride  leads  to 
iniquity,  which  calls  down  upon  its  head  the  wrath  of  God, 
and  destruction.  That  is,  according  to  the  conception  of  the 
Greeks,  as  expressed  by  their  poets  and  historians,  the 
natural  course  of  events.  Only  an  unusual  amount  of  good 
sense  will  enable  a  man  to  bear  prosperity.^    The  view  is 

1  Theognis,  153: 

TiKTfl  rOl  K6pOS  S$piV,  ^'TCtV  KttKff   6\$05  flTriTM. 

'Av6p(i>va>,  Koi  8t<p  fi^  y6o5  &prios  ^. 
Aristotle  gives  us  in  his  Rhetoric  (IL,  15-17)  an  admirable  description  of  the 
influence  of  eutuchia  and  its  different  forms  -  aristocracy,  wealth,  influence,  and 


408 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


-•A 


undoubtedly  well-founded  that  prosperity  and  success  have 
the  tendency  to  make  one  self-satisfied  and  insolent.  The 
prosperous  man  is  prone  to  judge  others  harshly  and  himself 
mildly.  His  success  he  considers  to  be  due  entirely  to  his 
own  exertions ;  he  is  ready  to  speak  uncharitably  of  the  mis- 
fortune or  failure  of  others,  and  to  lay  all  the  blame  on  them. 
He  has  no  respect  for  the  striving  of  others,  nor  sympathy 
with  their  misfortunes,  and  thus  arises  the  habit  of  mind  so 
hated  by  gods  and  men,  which  the  Greeks  call  vffpt<:,  inso- 
lence. This  leads  to  the  contemptuous  treatment  of  both 
things  and  men,  and  to  the  shameful  abuse  of  the  weak  and 
vanquished ;  to  a  state  of  careless  self-assurance  that  is  soon 
followed  by  the  fall,  the  inevitable  result  of  inner  exhaustion 
and  heedlessness. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  mere  sight  of  sensuous 
enjoyment  usually  fills  the  spectator  with  disgust;  thus,  for 
instance,  to  watch  a  company  of  people  feasting  and  drinking 
is  apt  to  arouse  feelings  of  repulsion.  We  naturally  shrink 
from  observing  the  satisfaction  of  sensuous  needs.  Lovers 
likewise  seek  solitude,  and  it  is  right  for  them  to  do  so ; 
lookers-on  are  apt  to  be  disgusted  by  their  happiness.  What 
makes  the  vain  man  so  unbearable  is  the  fact  that  he  needs 
and  seeks  people  to  whom  to  narrate  his  deeds  and  suf- 
ferings. Biographies  usually  become  uninteresting  as  soon 
as  the  hero  has  overcome  all  the  difficulties  and  obstacles,  the 
dangers  and  battles,  which  separated  him  from  his  goal.  The 
years  of  rest  and  universal  recognition,  of  fame  and  wealth, 
however  well  deserved  they  may  be,  are  passed  over  by  the 
biographer.  Goethe  showed  his  good  sense  in  not  extending 
his  autobiography  beyond  the  period  of  his  entrance  into 
Weimar. — "Enjoyment  is  degrading,"  says  Faust  —  a  pro- 
found truth,  for  the  soul  addicted  to  pleasure  is  conquered 
and  degraded.    The  real  secret  of  Faust's  power  of  resist- 

power  —  on  character.    We  moderns  should  have  to  add  as  a  prominent  form, 
literary  or  artistic  success  and  a  brilliant  career. 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS 


409 


ance  to  evil  is  his  failure  to  find  satisfaction  in  pleasure. 
The  devil  hopes  to  debase  him  by  means  of  enjoyment: 
Staub  soil  er  fressen  und  mit  Lust}  Faust  eats  the  dust,  but 
not  with  zest,  and  hence  the  devil  cannot  wholly  win  his 
soul.  There  is  a  noble  discontent  in  him,  which  makes  his 
salvation  possible. 

What  is  true  of  individuals  is  also  true  of  collective  hodieSy 
of  nations,  classes,  parties :  prosperity  ruins  them.  They  lose 
their  capacity  for  self-criticism  and  self-control,  they  lose  their 
strength  and  dignity,  they  lose  the  sense  of  what  is  proper  and 
their  standards  of  reality,  and  so,  inwardly  ruined,  they  are 
ingloriously  defeated  by  the  despised  foe.  Nothing  in  the 
world  is  more  repulsive  than  a  company  of  well-fed  and  self- 
satisfied  persons,  who  boast  of  their  fatness  and  satiety ; 
nothing  is  so  apt  to  arouse  all  the  healthy  instincts  of  hu- 
manity against  it,  nothing  therefore  so  certain  of  destruc- 
tion, —  as  history  proves.  —  The  history  of  the  church  also 
confirms  this  truth,  nay,  perhaps  it  is  nowhere  so  self- 
evident  as  there,  for  the  church  triumphant  and  dominant 
invariably  becomes  haughty,  stubborn,  hard-hearted,  and  per- 
secuting. But  as  her  external  authority  increases,  her  inner 
authority  decreases,  until  ruin  overtakes  her.  Then  comes 
the  reaction.  The  despised  and  persecuted  church  revives ; 
humility,  self-sacrifice,  and  heroism  again  show  themselves ; 
she  again  gains  power  over  the  souls  of  men.  Then  the 
cycle  begins  anew.  The  powers  of  the  world  approach  her, 
she  becomes  a  power  among  others,  who  must  be  reckoned 
with,  who  can  give  favors  and  accept  favors.  Honors  and 
wealth  are  showered  upon  her,  she  controls  desirable  posi- 
tions, she  places  the  dogmas  and  the  worship  under  the 
protection  of  the  police.  And  now  come  the  clever,  the 
covetous,  the  worldly,  and  the  aristocratic,  and  are  anxious 
to  serve  the  church.  And  the  church  allows  them  to  serve 
her  and  to  control  her,  and  again  to  ruin  her. 

^  Dust  shall  he  eat  and  with  a  zest. 


410 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


Such  are  the  consequences  of  prosperity.     Now  look  at  the 
other  side  of  the  picture,  at  the  educating,  strengthening, 
purifying  effects  of  adversity,  failure,  and  suffering.     Misfor- 
tune steels  the  will ;  the  will  that  can  bear  trouble  is  made 
elastic  and  grows  strong  under  pressure.     It  gives  us  patience 
to  bear  the  inevitable,  it  exercises  our  ability  to  measure  and 
to  test  ourselves  and  our  powers ;  it  makes  us  modest  in  our 
demands  and  charitable  in  our  judgments  of  others'  failings. 
Prosperity  develops  the  repulsive  qualities  of  human  nature ; 
adversity  unites  men,  making  them  friendly,  patient,   and 
just.     When  a  storm  suddenly  comes  up  on  a  summer  day, 
we  may  see  how  the  persons  of  high  and  low  degree  who 
avoided   and  repelled  each  other  while  the   sun  was   shin- 
ing, now  seek  refuge  beneath  the  same  roof,  and  bear  and 
even  jest  with  each  other.     So  it  is  when  a  great  misfortune 
overtakes  a  city  or  a  nation ;  it  breaks  down  all  the  barriers 
of  pride  and  hatred  which  were  erected  in  the  days  of  pros- 
perity.   Finally,  the  highest  moral  perfection  is  not  matured 
without  misfortune  and  suffering.     Christ  entered  into  glory 
through   suffering.      Rejected  by  the  leaders  of  His  people, 
condemned  by  the  unjust,  mistreated  by  the  puppets  of  the 
mighty,  reviled  and  cursed  by  the  mob,  denied  and  forsaken 
by  Hi's  disciples.  He  won  the  highest  crown.     Well   could 
He  say,   upon   the  cross,  with   head   bowed  down,   "It   is 
finished";    the  highest   that    can  be   achieved   upon  earth 
had  been  accomplished :   He  had  suffered  evil  for  the  sake 
of  the  good,  without  losing  faith  in  the  good,  and  without 
changing   His    inner  peace   into    hatred   and   contempt  for 

humanity. 

Christianity  is  wholly  a  philosophy  of  suffering.  Tentatio 
est  vita  hominis  super  terram,  Job's  maxim,  expresses  the  fund- 
amental mood  of  Christianity.  Nor  did  the  Greeks  fail  to 
appreciate  this  truth.  Misfortune  has  an  educating  influence. 
"  No  human  being  can  be  trained  without  blows,"  says  a  line 
of  Menander,  which  Goethe,  who  could  hardly  be  called  a  friend 


VIRTUE  AND  HAPPINESS 


411 


of  suffering,  significantly  places  at  the  beginning  of  his  auto- 
biography. But  the  faith  of  the  Greek  people  in  the  purify- 
ing and  elevating  power  of  suffering  is  especially  emphasized 
in  the  writings  of  the  tragic  poets.  The  chorus  in  ^schylus's 
Agamemnon  gives  voice  to  it:  "For  Zeus  leads  us  to  wis- 
dom and  sanctifies  the  law  that  suffering  is  our  teacher." 

Suffering  is  punishment ;  but  for  him  who  accepts  the  pun- 
ishment, it  is  also  a  remedy  against  that  disease  of  the  soul, 
which  is  caused  by  prosperity,  i/ySpt?,  self-righteous  harshness. 
That  is  the  idea  expressed  in  the  (Edipus  tragedies.  The  pure 
man,  however,  who  becomes  the  victim  of  undeserved  misfor- 
tune shows,  by  bearing  it  tranquilly,  the  most  sublime  power 
and  independence  of  the  human  will  with  regard  to  the 
natural  course  of  things.  So  the  dying  Socrates  has  become 
for  the  philosophers  a  living  witness  of  the  truth  that  no 
evil  can  befall  man  so  long  as  he  refuses  to  regard  it  as 
such.  "  How  can  that  be  an  evil,"  Marcus  Aurelius  asks, 
"  that  does  not  make  me  worse  ? " 

Hence  we  may  say  that  real  happiness  is  a  proper  mixture 
of  so-called  happiness  (good  fortune)  and  misfortune.  A 
man's  lot  is  not  happy  when  all  his  desires  are  always  and 
fully  realized, —  but  when  he  obtains  a  proper  share  of  joy 
and  sorrow,  success  and  failure,  plenty  and  want,  struggle 
and  peace,  work  and  rest,  and  obtains  it  at  the  right  time. 
Just  as  the  plant  needs  sunshine  and  rain  in  order  to  thrive, 
so  the  inner  man  cannot  prosper  without  both  cheerful  and 
gloomy  days.  If  everything  went  against  him,  if  he  experi- 
enced nothing  but  trouble,  he  would,  if  such  a  life  were  at  all 
possible,  necessarily  turn  from  the  world  and  life  with  horror. 
Nor  could  a  man  call  himself  happy  if  his  wishes  were 
realized  as  soon  as  they  rose  in  his  soul.  Even  if  satiety 
and  pride  would  not  ruin  him  —  a  result  hardly  to  be  avoided 
—  he  would  miss  some  very  important  human  experiences, 
he  would  not  bring  out  some  quite  essential  phases  of  human 
nature.    Just  as  a  general  who  has  never  met  with  defeat 


412 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


hi 


would  remain  ignorant  of  all  the  resources  of  his  mind,  and 
be  unable  to  unfold  them,  so  a  man  who  has  never  wanted 
for  anything,  and  has  never  failed  in  anything,  would  not 
be  able  to  develop  all  the  powers  of  his  mind  and  will.  He 
would  feel  that  fate  had  withheld  from  him  something  essen- 
tial to  the  perfection  of  his  being,  and  he  would,  perhaps,  like 
Polycrates,  feel  terrified  at  his  ''  happiness." 

And  so  we  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  life,  as  we  find  it, 
is  on  the  whole  adapted  to  the  real  needs  of  human  nature ;  it 
brings  to  every  one  good  and  evil  days,  success  and  trials.    We 
do  not  hear  many  complaining  that  there  are  too  many  happy 
days,  but  the  complaint  is  common  that  there  is  an  excess  of 
misery  and  want.    It  can,  of  course,  never  be  proved  that 
fate  succeeds  in  producing  the  proper  combination  in  every 
case :   that  is  simply  a  matter  of  faith.     And  perhaps  it  is 
often  hard  to  believe  it,  perhaps  harder  to  believe  it  in  the 
presence  of  the  infinite  misery  suffered  by  others  than  of  our 
own.    We  see  countless  creatures  perishing  from  a  lack  of 
care    and   prosperity,  from  a  lack   of  appropriate   problems 
to  solve,  from  a  lack  of  the  necessaries  of  life.    And  yet 
would  other  life-conditions  have  produced  more  favorable  re- 
sults ?     Who  can  tell  ?    How  often  have  nations  afterwards 
looked  back  upon  times  which  they  at  first  regarded  as  times 
of  degradation  and  extreme  misery,  with  feelings  of  grati- 
tude and  pride  !     Is  there  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Ger- 
many upon  which  the  eye  would  rather  dwell  than  upon  the 
period  after  the  battle  of  Jena?    Is  not  the  time  of  ''the 
greatest  humiliation  "  in  truth  also  the  time  of  the  greatest 
elevation  ?    Were  all  the  good  and  great  men  ever  so  hon- 
ored, so  united  as  then  ?    And  the  reverse  is  also  true.     The 
days  of  victory,  success,  wealth,  and  greatness,  look  differ- 
ent in  retrospect.     The  Dutch  painters  of  the  seventeenth 
century  evidently  wish  to  show  us  how  a  nation  lives  when 
it  is  too   prosperous.      We  might,  if  we  chose,  make  some 
observations  nearer  home. 


VIRTUE   AND  HAPPINESS 


413 


We  are  reminded  of  the  thoughtful  poem  of  Chamisso : 
Die  Kreuzschau,  A  man  complaining  of  the  heaviness  of 
his  cross  is  taken  to  a  large  hall  wliere  the  crosses  of  all 
human  beings  are  stored.  He  is  allowed  to  choose  a  new  one 
for  himself.  He  lays  down  his  own  and  begins  to  look 
around  for  a  more  suitable  one.  After  a  careful  and  deliberate 
search  he  finally  finds  a  cross  that  seems  most  satisfactory 
to  him.  Upon  examining  it  more  closely,  he  discovers  that 
it  is  his  own  cross,  which  he  had  for  the  moment  failed  to 

recognize. 

There  are  people  who  would  show  us  a  better  worid 
than  our  real  world,  and  therefore  denounce  the  real  worid 
as  a  failure.  If  they  were  allowed  to  realize  their  im- 
aginary world  and  to  live  in  it,  they  would  perhaps  discover 
that  the  conditions  are  far  more  satisfactory  in  our  despised 
world.  It  frequently  happens  that  persons  leaving  their 
country  full  of  hatred  and  contempt,  experience  a  change  of 
heart  after  they  have  lived  in  their  new  home  for  a  short 
while,  and  discover,  for  the  first  time,  how  deeply  they 
really  love  their  fatherland.  If  our  pessimists  could  be  trans- 
ported to  another  planet  for  a  short  period,  they  would  per- 
haps learn  to  think  of  the  earth  with  longing  and  gratitude. 
Perhaps  the  cure  is  nearer  at  hand  than  we  imagine. 
Periiaps  a  time  will  again  come  when  misfortune  and  sorrow 
will  teach  our  people  to  appreciate  life  and  its  goods  more 
highly.  Pessimism  flourishes  in  times  of  prosperity  and 
exuberance.  May  the  following  lines  — in  which  one  who 
lived  in  those  days  of  misfortune  and  spiritual  exaltation, 
Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  gives  expression  to  his  philosophy  of 
life  —  prepare  us  for  the  future : 

An  ehernen  Gesetzen  ftihrt  gekettet 
Der  irdischen  Geschleehter  Wandelreihen 
Das  Schicksal  unerbittlich  seinen  Pfad ; 
Zufrieden,  wenn  das  hohe  Ziel  es  rettet, 
Bleibt  kalt  es,  ob  sie  leiden,  ob  sich  freuen. 
Auch  uns  hat  es  auf  Rosen  nicht  gebettet ; 


414  CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 

Doch  aus  des  Busens  Tiefe  stromt  Gedeihen 

Der  festen  Duldung  und  entschloss*ner  That. 

Nicht  Schmerz  ist  Ungluck,  Gliick  nicht  immer  Freude, 

Wer  seln  Geschick  erfiillt,  dem  lacheln  beide.^ 

1  From  Haym*s  Lift  of  Humboldt,  p.  258.  [Inexorable  Fate  leads  the 
changing  ranks  of  the  earthly  generations,  shackled  by  iron  laws ;  happy  when 
she  realizes  her  high  goal,  she  remains  indifferent  to  their  joys  and  sorrows. 
We  too  have  not  been  resting  on  a  bed  of  roses ;  but  our  hearts  are  strong  in 
patience  and  full  of  energetic  action.  Pain  is  not  a  misfortune,  pleasure  not 
always  a  blessing ;  whoever  fulfils  his  destiny  suffers  both.] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION  » 

1.  The  question  which  I  shall  attempt  to  answer  in  this 
chapter  is:  Is  there  an  inner  connection  —  one  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  things,  and  therefore  indissoluble,  —  between 
religion  and  morality,  or  are  morality  and  religion  independent 
of  each  other,  and  merely  accidentally  related  ? 

An  historical  reflection  will  prepare  us  for  the  answer.^  — 
It  is  one  of  the  safest  propositions  of  anthropology  that  a 
very  intimate  relation  exists  between  the  religion  and  the 
morality  of  a  people,  at  least  at  a  certain  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment. The  customs  have  the  sanction  of  the  gods ;  the  com- 
mandments of  religion  and  morality  form  a  unified  code  of 
laws ;  piety  and  morality  are  regarded  as  one  and  the  same 
thing.  Let  me  simply  call  to  mind  the  best  known  example. 
In  the  laws  of  Moses,  religious,  moral,  and  legal  duties  appear 
as  wholly  homogeneous  parts  of  one  law  of  God.  All  of 
them  are  equally  binding ;  all  flow  from  the  will  of  God,  and 
the  punishment  of  every  violation  is  regarded  by  the  people 
as  a  religious  duty.     The  fear  of  God  is  the  foundation  of 

^  [Janet,  Theory  of  Morals,  chap.  XII. ;  Steinthal,  Allgemeine  Ethik,  pp. 
9  ff. ;  Hoffding,  Ethik,  XXXI.-XXXIII. ;  Gizycki,  Moralphilosophie,  pp. 
329-495;  Coit's  translation,  pp.  208-276;  Schurman,  Belief  in  God,  Lecture 
III. ;  Wundt,  Ethik,  Part  I.,  chap.  II. ;  Hyslop,  Elements  of  Ethics,  chap.  IX. ; 
Mackenzie,  Manual,  chap.  XVII.;  Bowne,  Principles  of  Ethics,  chap.  VII.; 
Smyth,  Christian  Ethics,  Introduction,  V.  ;  J.  Seth,  Ethical  Principles,  Part  III., 
chaps.  II.,  III. ;  Pollock,  Essays  in  Jurisprudence  and  Ethics,  chap.  XI. ;  Runze, 
Ethik,  p.  56.  —  Tr.] 

*  I  have  worked  out  many  ideas  which  are  merely  suggested  here,  in  my  Intro- 
duction to  Philosophy  (5th  edition,  1898)  [translated  by  Frank  Thilly]. 


416 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


morality ;  pious  and  good,  godless  and  bad,  are  synonymous 
terms.  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  accept  this  view. 
We  find  it  also  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  Hindoos  and 
Persians,  Egyptians  and  Assyrians.  The  entire  life  of  the  in- 
dividual and  society  is  regulated  by  religion  ;  all  the  institutions 
of  the  state  and  society,  all  customs  and  usages  which  govern 
the  life  of  the  individual,  have  a  religious  basis.  We  note  the 
same  connection  between  religion  and  morals  among  the  most 
civilized  tribes  of  all  the  native  peoples  of  America,  among 
the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians.  Waitz  quotes  several  examples 
of  Mexican  wisdom  which  would  do  credit  to  a  Hebrew  or 
Christian  moral  philosopher.  This  he  considers  a  convincing 
proof  of  the  high  state  of  mental  advancement  reached  by 
those  nations.  "  There  is,"  this  experienced  student  of 
anthropology  adds,  "  hardly  a  more  trustworthy  sign  and  a 
safer  criterion  of  the  civilization  of  a  people  than  the  degree 
in  which  the  demands  of  pure  morality  are  supported  by  their 
religion  and  interwoven  with  their  religious  life."  ^ 

How  are  we  to  explain  the  union  of  religion  and  morality  ? 
Many  facts  seem  to  oppose  the  view  that  the  connection  is  an 
absolutely  necessary  one.  In  the  lowest  stages  of  development 
religion  exercises  a  separate  function.  It  appears  in  the  form 
of  magic  practices,  having  no  connection  with  morality,  so  far 
as  there  is  such  a  thing ;  fetiches  are  indifferent  to  the  conduct 
of  men,  except  so  far  as  the  latter  directly  concerns  them ; 
"  idolatry  "  and  "  morality  "  have  nothing  to  do  with  each 
other.  Hence,  if  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  original  state, 
how  was  the  connection  between  religion  and  morality  brought 
about?  Or,  if  this  question  is  left  unanswered,  upon  what 
was  the  connection  originally  based  ? 

1  Th.  Waitz,  Anthropologie  der  Naturvdlker,  IV.,  128.  An  elaborate  and  thought- 
fnl  historical  discussion  of  the  relation  of  religion  to  custom  and  morality  may  be 
found  in  Wundt's  Ethics,  Section  I.,  chaps.  2  and  3.  The  work  of  Fustel  de 
Coulanges,  La  ciM  antique  (translated),  shows  that  the  political  and  legal  insti- 
tutions of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  were  originally  intimately  connected  with 
religion  ;  the  oldest  codes  embrace  worship,  morality,  and  law,  just  like  the  laws 
of  Moses.    Law  was  for  a  long  time  a  priestly  science  among  the  Romans. 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      417 

We  might,  looking  at  the  matter  in  a  somewhat  superficial 
manner,  attempt  the  following  explanation.  Acts  of  worship 
constitute  the  earliest  subject-matter  of  science.  Complete 
accuracy  and  correctness  are  of  the  utmost  importance  ;  the 
slightest  mistake  may  make  the  act  ineffectual  or  even  injuri- 
ous ;  —  think  of  the  Hindoo  or  Jewish  sacrificial  worship. 
Hence  the  priests  are  the  first  scientists.  They  develop  and 
transmit  the  great  science  of  correct  worship.  Here  arise 
the  first  fixed  rules  which  exclude  all  arbitrariness.  To  these 
the  demands  of  custom  and  of  law  are  added  and  gradually 
form  with  them  a  unified  code  of  law,  which  embraces  every- 
thing that  is  binding  upon  all  the  members  of  the  people. 
The  transcendent  sanction,  wliich  first  attaches  to  religious 
duties,  is  thereby  extended  to  the  decrees  of  morals  and  law. 

An  original  inner  afl5nity  between  religious  and  moral-legal 
duties  perhaps  favors  the  union.  All  religious  command- 
ments resemble  each  other  :  they  demand  sacrifices,  ablutions^ 
abstinences,  restrictions  of  desire.  All  acts  of  worship  ex- 
press submission  of  the  individual  will  to  a  higher  and  more 
mighty  power  ;  humility  wins  the  favor  of  the  gods,  insolence 
provokes  their  wrath.  The  same  is  true  of  the  demands  of 
custom ;  they  too  limit  and  bind  the  individual  will,  they  too 
enjoin  submission  to  authority.  With  them  too  insolence 
leads  to  the  violation  of  custom  and  to  impiety  towards  the 
gods.  The  gods  are  enemies  of  insolence,  and  so  become  the 
protectors  of  custom.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  weak  and 
outlawed,  strangers  and  helpless  ones,  everywhere  enjoy  the 
protection  of  the  gods.  Offences  against  guests,  or  against 
helpless  old  age  or  children  are  particularly  punishable  by  the 
gods. 

The  subject,  however,  is  capable  of  a  profounder  treatment. 
—  We  may  define  religion  in  a  general  way  as  faith  in  the 
transcendent.  It  invariably  presupposes  a  feeling  of  the 
insufficiency  of  the  empirical  world.  Fetichism  and  shamanism 
too  are  attempts  to  accomplish  by  magic  influences  upon  trans- 

27 


fi 


418 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


« ' 


cendent  powers  or  beings  what  cannot  be  attained  by  natural 
means.     As  life  develops,  the  will  is   spiritualized.     In  the 
lowest  stages  of  human  existence  it  desires  scarcely  more 
than  the  satisfaction  of  animal  needs.     With  the  advance  of 
civilization  it  aims  not  merely  at  life,  but  at  a  beautiful  and 
good   life,   at  an   ideal  of  humanity.     This  change   in   the 
direction  of  man's  will  produces  a  corresponding  change  in 
the  form  of  the  transcendent  world :  the  manifold  world  of 
gods  of  polytheism  is  the  creation  of  the  higher  will.     Perma- 
nent, personal,  historical  beings  take  the  place  of  the  vague, 
perishable,  nameless  magic  forces  of  fetichism.     In  the  gods, 
man's  ideals  of  a  beautiful  and  good  life  are  realized.    The 
Greek  world  of  gods  is  the  objectification  of  the  ideal  human 
world,  created  by  the  longing  of  the  Greek  people  for  the 
beautiful  and  the  good.     Each   of  these  divine   personages 
represents  some  phase  of  the  Greek  ideal  of  humanity.     And 
this   transcendent  world  is   not    indifferent   to   or   without 
influence  upon  the  empirical  world  ;  the  gods  are  ever  mindr 
ful   of  man ;    guiding  him,  protecting  him,  and  punishing 
him,  they  fashion  his  will  to  perfection.    The  magic  char- 
acter is  not  entirely  lost ;  the  attempt  to  influence  the  will  of 
the  gods  in  order  to  realize  through  them  immediate  indi- 
vidual purposes,  health,  wealth,  victory,  success,  undoubtedly 
occupied  a  prominent  place  in  the  actual  religious  practices  of 
the  people.     But  theurgy  gradually  lost  its  importance  among 
the  leaders  and  even  among  the  larger  circles  of  the  popu- 
lation  —  particularly  through  the  mediation  of  art  — and  the 
disinterested  contemplation  of  the  gods  as  the  perfect  models 
and  guides  of  life,  an  attitude  which  is  expressed  in  the  beauti- 
ful  figure  of  the  praying  boy,  came  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
essential  elements  in  religion.  -  In  monotheism  which  appears 
in  history  as  the  last  and  highest  development  of  religion,  the 
ideal  element  is  still  more  pronounced.      Christianity   does 
away  with  magic  entirely  ;  Jesus  teaches  his  disciples  to  pray, 
Thy  will  be  done !     Christian  prayer  presupposes  the  belief 


THE   RELATION  OF   MORALITY   TO   RELIGION       419 

that  whatever  may  come  comes  from  God  and  is  good ;  its 
real  purpose  is  to  make  the  heart  submissive  to  God's  will. 
God's  will,  however,  is  absolute  holiness,  justice,  and  grace. 
The  deepest  will  of  the  purest  man  objectifies  itself  in  the  holy 
will  of  God,  and  then  conceives  itself  as  a  revelation  of  God. 

We  may  therefore  say  that  the  religion  of  a  people  mirrors 
its  own  will  in  a  transcendent  world,  in  which  the  objects 
of  its  deepest  longings  are  realized.  For  faith  this  transcend- 
ent world  is  the  real  and  true  reality,  compared  with  which 
the  empirical  world  is  unworthy  and  unreal.  But  they  are 
not  separated  by  an  absolute  chasm.  All  pure  striving  comes 
from  above  and  tends  upward. 

This  determines  the  relation  of  morality  to  religion.  Both 
spring  from  the  same  root,  the  yearning  of  the  will  for  per- 
fection. But  that  which  is  a  demand  in  morals  becomes  a 
reality  in  religion.  Perfection  is  described  by  morality  in 
abstract  formulae,  it  is  intuited  in  religion  in  concrete  form 
as  a  divine,  holy,  and  blessed  life.  And  so,  too,  morality 
and  religion  are  seen  to  be  two  phases  of  the  same  thing  in 
the  subject :  the  individual  is  moral  in  so  far  as  his  willing 
and  acting  strive  after  perfection,  pious  in  so  far  as  his 
feelings,  his  faith,  and  his  hopes,  are  inspired  with  the  image 
of  the  highest. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  effect  of  the  union  of  religion  and 
morals.  There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  religious 
sanction  of  custom  and  the  moral  laws  has,  in  a  large 
measure,  assisted  in  the  moral  discipline  of  the  individual. 
The  absolute  fear  (religio)  which  hinders  the  violation  of 
religious  commandments  is  extended  to  the  moral  laws. 
The  belief  in  a  life  after  death  has  been  especially  influential 
in  this  direction.  In  the  next  world  man  is  in  the  immediate 
power  of  the  gods ;  here  upon  this  earth  their  power  is  more 
remote,  their  interference  occasional;  the  transgressor  be- 
lieves that  he  can  sin  in  secret.  In  the  hereafter,  however, 
he  appears  before  the  judgment  seat  without  concealment, 


420 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


m 
in 


1 
'I 


before  the  judgment  of  the  dead,  which  is  pictured  by  so 
many  religions  as  the  gradually  approaching  goal  of  life. 
Then  everything  will  be  brought  to  light,  merit  and  guilt 
will  be  judged  before  a  just  judge.  Whoever  is  full  of  guilt, 
whoever  has  lived  an  unworthy  life,  whoever  has  been  remiss 
in  his  duties  towards  the  gods,  will  suffer  for  it,  and  con- 
versely, whoever  has  lived  a  brave,  pious,  righteous  life,  may 
hopefully  enter  eternity.  Nowhere  is  this  idea  more  effec- 
tively brought  out  than  in  the  Christian  church.  The  great 
judgment  day,  which  will  end  our  earthly  history,  and  finally 
decide  the  fate  of  all  human  beings,  rewarding  some  with 
eternal  blessedness,  punishing  others  with  eternal  damnation, 
is  a  conception  which  has  made  a  powerful  impression  upon 
the  consciousness  of  man. 

Thus  the  fear    and  the  hope   of    the  hereafter    become 
powerful  protectors  of  morality. 

These  impulses  appear  in  purer  form  in  deeper  souls. 
God  is  not  merely  the  stern  judge,  but  also  a  father  who  in 
his  merciful  love  forgives  man.     The  chief  concern  of  the 
pious  man  is,  not  to  prove  unworthy  of  this  love,  not  to  dis- 
appoint the  Holy  One,  not  to  exclude  himself  by  deeds  of 
darkness   from  fellowship    in   the   realm   of  light.     In   the 
base  soul  religion  becomes  base ;  future  reward  and  punish- 
ment become  a  matter  of  speculation  as  it  were:  the   re- 
mission of  moral  duties  is  purchased  by  an  exact  fuUUment 
of  ecclesiastical  duties,  the  forgiveness  of  sins  by  dispensa- 
tions.    This  is  a  perversion  of  religion  which  the  systemati- 
zation  of  worship  tends  to  produce  in  a  church.     Jesus  found 
it  in  Judaism  as  Pharisaism,  Luther  found  it  in  Christianity 
as  the  system  of  "  good  works,"  Spener  found  it  in  Luther- 
ism  as  "orthodoxy;"   "faith"    Cfides  mercenaria,  to  use 
Kant's  expression)  had  become  the  ultimate   "good  work," 
taking  the  place  of  all  the  others ;  and  we  find  the  same  thing 
existing    to-day.      This    "pseudo-worship    (^Afterdienst^    of 
God  in  the  statutory  religion,"  as  Kant  calls  it,  is  a  great 


THE   RELATION  OF   MORALITY   TO   RELIGION       421 

menace  to  religious-church  life.  It  dulls  the  sense  of  truth 
and  the  moral  feeling ;  it  also  fosters  fanaticism :  Whoever 
fails  to  respect  our  worship,  cannot  respect  us;  he  is  our 
enemy  and  therefore  God's  enemy,  who  favors  and  recognizes 
our  service;  to  persecute  and  kill  him  is  therefore  a  good 
work  and  one  with  which  he  is  well  pleased. 

2.  Let  us  now  return  to  the  question  which  we  asked  at  the 
outset :  Is  the  relation  between  morality  and  religion  an  es- 
sential one,  and  therefore  indissoluble,  or  is  it  merely  a  pass- 
ing phenomenon,  peculiar  to  a  particular  stage  of  development  ? 
Will  the  connection  be  severed  in  the  future  ?  Will  there 
then  be  a  perfect  morality  without  any  religiosity  ? 

This  question  was  not  seriously  debated  until  recently.  For 
centuries  nothing  seemed  more  self-evident  than  the  insepar- 
ableness  of  morality  and  religion.  The  tie  between  the  two 
was  first  loosened  by  the  violent  commotions  to  which  all 
theoretical  conceptions  have  been  subjected  since  the  beginning 
of  modern  times.  The  church  belief  first  began  to  wane  in 
scientific  and  educated  circles ;  infidelity  has  gradually  taken 
possession  of  the  masses  also.  A  purely  physical  conception 
of  the  universe  now  widely  prevails.  The  belief  is  also  com- 
mon that  morality  and  religion,  ethics  and  metaphysics,  are 
wholly  different  things ;  that  conduct  is  totally  independent  of 
the  idea  which  one  may  have  of  the  constitution  of  the  world, 
and  that  his  world-view  is  therefore  the  individual's  private 
concern.  A  man  may  be  a  materialist,  atheist,  pantheist, 
sceptic,  or  anything  else,  without  in  the  least  affecting  our 
estimate  of  his  moral  worth. 

There  are  unquestionably  also  narrower  circles  in  which  this 
view  is  emphatically  opposed.  The  consequence  of  infidelity, 
it  is  declared,  is  to  enjoy  the  present,  regardless  of  the  future ; 
theoretical  materialism  necessarily  produces  practical  materi- 
alism, —  at  any  rate  this  is  its  logical  consequence,  even  though 
manv  a  theoretical  materialist  is  hindered  by  custom  and  habit 
from  drawing  it  in  practice. 


422 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


1 


If 


After  all  we  have  said  before,  we  cannot  support  the  view 
that  a  life  ignoring  the  laws  of  morality  follows  as  a  logical 
necessity  from  any  particular  metaphysical  belief  or  unbelief. 
We  shall  prefer  to  say  :  Whatever  may  be  a  man's  notion  of 
the  nature  of  things,  the  laws  of  morality  are  none  the  less 
binding  upon  him;  they  are  not  arbitrary  prescriptions,  the 
observance  of  which  is  advisable  from  the  standpoint  of  re- 
wards and  punishments.  They  are  rather  laws  of  nature  in 
the  sense  that  the  welfare  of  a  life  depends  upon  their  ob- 
servance. And  the  opinions  of  men  in  no  wise  affect  them. 
Hence  if  any  one  were  to  infer  from  an  atheistic-materialistic 
conception  that  the  laws  of  morality  had  no  further  claim 
upon  him,  he  would  be  in  error,  and  would  have  to  bear  the 
consequences  of  his  error. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  an  immoral  life  will  actually  result 
from  unbelief,  any  more  than  I  believe  that  a  moral  life  is  the 
invariable  consequence  of  faith.  There  are,  undoubtedly, 
honest  and  reliable  men,  nay  even  passionate  and  self-sacrific- 
ing idealists,  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  have  repudiated  not 
only  the  church  creed,  but  all  religion,  just  as  there  are 
among  those  whose  church-belief  has  not  been  shaken  in  the 
least,  who  perform  all  their  religious  duties  in  the  most  punc- 
tilious and  conscientious  manner,  and  who  are  also  capable 
of  true  religious  feeling,  men  whose  lives  and  acts  are  full  of 
stubborn  perverseness,  cold-hearted  pride,  and  hypocritical 

falsehood. 

Still,  I  do  not  believe  that  morality  and  religion,  conduct 
and  Weltanschauung,  are  entirely  indifferent  to  each  other. 

There  are  two  views  of  the  world  which  are  radically 
opposed  to  each  other.  The  central  thought  of  the  one  is  that 
the  good  is  an  essential  element  in  the  world,  that  reality 
.exists  through  the  good  and  for  the  sake  of  the  good.  We 
can  call  this  conception  idealistic,  following  Plato's  terminology, 
who  bases  the  world  upon  the  idea  of  the  good.  We  may  also 
call  it  theistic,  if  we  mean  by  belief  in  God  the  trust  that  the 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      423 

good  is  the  ground  and  the  goal  of  the  world,  or,  to  use 
Fichte's  expression,  that  the  world-order  is  in  the  last  analysis 
a  moral  order.  Every  theistic  belief,  in  whatever  form  it  may 
arise,  can  be  embraced  under  this  most  general  formula. 
Opposed  to  idealism  we  have  materialism  ;  according  to  it  the 
world-principle  is  in  its  essence  absolutely  indifferent  to  dis- 
tinctions of  value.  The  atoms  and  their  uniform  motions,  of 
which  the  whole  of  reality  is  composed,  have  originally  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do  with  the  good  and  the  evil,  the  rational 
and  the  irrational.  In  the  course  of  time  all  kinds  of  com- 
binations, among  them  also  living  beings,  are  formed  by  the 
purely  accidental  conjunction  of  atoms ;  in  these,  feelings  of 
pleasure  and  pain  arise,  as  peculiarly  modified  processes  of 
motion,  and  things  are  accordingly  characterized  as  pleasant 
and  unpleasant,  good  and  bad.  Like  all  combinations  of 
atoms,  these,  too,  will  again  be  dissolved  by  chance ;  the  indi- 
viduals will  constantly  perish,  and  finally  also  the  species  will 
die  ;  the  conditions  for  the  formation  of  living  beings  will  no 
longer  exist,  and  then  pleasure  and  pain,  good  and  evil,  will 
disappear  together,  leaving  nothing  but  unfeeling  atoms  and 
irrational  laws  behind. 

Now  I  believe  that  the  acceptance  of  either  one  of  these 
antagonistic  world-views  is  not  wholly  unrelated  to  a  man's  will 
and  conduct.  A  life  containing  ideal  elements  itself  will 
naturally  incline  to  the  idealistic  conception,  while  an  empty 
and  planless  life  will  tend  to  the  opposite  view.  For  not 
the  world-view,  as  has  often  been  thought,  but  the  disposition 
of  the  will  is  the  all-important  thing.  Life  determines  faith, 
not  faith  life.  What  kind  of  philosophy  you  will  choose,  as 
Fichte  truly  said,  depends  upon  what  kind  of  man  you  are. 
If  your  life  is  a  medley  of  blind  impulses  and  momentary 
desires  and  moods,  how  can  you  form  a  higher  conception  of 
the  universe?  Every  man  judges  the  value  of  the  world 
by  the  value  of  human  life,  and  he  forms  his  opinion  of 
the  value  of  human  life  from  the  experiences  of  his  own  life. 


I 


424 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


In  case  the  latter  is  an  aimless  whirl  of  empty  momentary 
desires,  it  will  be  suited  by  a  world  which  is  itself  an  aimless 
play  of  atoms.  An  empty  life  produces  a  nihilistic  conception 
of  the  universe.  Conversely,  whoever  fills  his  own  life  with 
things  of  permanent  value,  whoever  pursues  lasting  ends,  great 
ideals,  will  place  a  different  value,  first,  upon  his  own  life,  then 
upon  the  life  of  humanity,  and  finally  upon  the  world  at  large. 
He  will  see  a  purpose  and  meaning  in  history,  of  which  his 
own  life  forms  a  part ;  he  will  interpret  the  past  in  the  light  of 
his  own  aspirations,  believing  that  all  good  and  great  men 
battled  for  the  same  cause ;  he  will  look  upon  the  future  as 
his :  men  of  faith  and  action  always  believe  that  the  future  is 
on  their  side ;  finally,  the  whole  of  reality  will  seem  to  him  to 
be  governed  by  the  purpose  to  bring  about  the  very  things  for 
which  he  is  zealously  and  honestly  striving.  Thus  the  value 
which  we  put  upon  our  own  lives  is  finally  predicated  of  the 

things  themselves. 

One's  conception  of  the  universe,  we  may  therefore  say,  is, 
so  far  as  it  includes  and  expresses  judgments  of  value,  the 
mirror  of  one's  will.     Everybody  interprets  the  phenomena  so 
that  they  may  harmonize  with  his  character.     Just  as  every 
life  surrounds  itself  with  symbols  of  what  it  holds  dear  and 
valuable,  so  it  strives   to  formulate  a   conception  of   things 
which  will  have  a  quieting  and  elevating  influence  upon  the 
will.     An  empty  will  is  satisfied  with  a  nihilistic  world-view  ; 
an  idealistic  world-view  would  leave  a  painful  sting  in  it ;  it 
would  appear  before  the  world  as  the  only  being  unwilling  to 
harmonize  with  the  purposes  of  the  universe.     A  will  with 
ideals,  on  the  other  hand,  could  not  bear  to  think  of  itself  as 
nothing  but  a  strange  anomaly  in  the  world,  as  a  freak  of 
nature  again  to   be   cast   aside.     The  thought  alone  would 
satisfy  it  that   it  was   derived  from   the  world-principle  it- 
self, and  in  essential  harmony  with  it,  and  that  neither  its 
achievements  nor  its  strivings  could  be  lost. 

Thus  life  influences  faith.   Faith  then  also  undoubtedly  reacts 


THE   RELATION   OF  MORALITY   TO   RELIGION       425 

upon  life.  The  belief  in  the  power  of  the  good,  the  belief  in  God, 
strengthens  the  courage  and  arouses  hope.  We  shall  perhaps 
be  compelled  to  say,  that  nothing  truly  great  has  ever  been 
accomplished  in  this  world  without  faith.  All  religions  are 
based  upon  faith ;  through  faith  their  founders  and  disciples 
have  overcome  the  world.  Believing  in  an  idea  all  martyrs 
have  lived,  fought,  and  suffered,  —  believing  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  good  for  which  they  sacrificed  their  lives, 
they  have  died.  Who  could  die  for  a  cause  in  whose  ultimate 
and  enduring  success  he  did  not  believe  ?  And  what  would 
be  left  of  the  history  of  the  world  if  all  these  things  were 
stricken  out  ?  Unbelief,  on  the  other  hand,  is  discouraging : 
what  is  the  use  in  trying ;  let  the  things  go  as  they  please ; 
who  knows  what  the  next  day  will  bring  forth  ?  So  Goethe 
says :  "  The  real  and  sole  theme  of  the  history  of  the  world 
is  the  conflict  between  belief  and  unbelief.  All  epochs  in 
which  faith  reigns  supreme,  under  whatever  form  it  may  be, 
are  bright,  uplifting,  and  fruitful  for  contemporaries  and 
posterity.  All  epochs,  on  the  other  hand,  in  which  unbelief, 
in  any  form,  gains  a  weak  victory,  even  though  temporarily 
boasting  of  a  sham  glory,  will  pass  away,  because  no  one  will 
take  the  trouble  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  unfruitful."  ^ 

3.  But  has  not  the  progress  of  scientific  knowledge  rendered 
faith  idle  ?  Are  not  theism  and  idealism  a  mere  shamefaced 
survival  of  the  ancient  superstition  which  first  flourislied  so 
luxuriantly  in  the  miraculous  world  of  gods  of  polytheism  ? 
Has  not  science  convinced  all  those  who  are  capable  of  seeing 
things  as  they  are,  that  blind  forces  which  know  nothing  of 
good  and  evil  determine  the  course  of  the  world  ? 

Many  are  of  the  opinion  that  such  is  the  case  ;  they  believe 
that  scientific  knowledge  has  left  religion  with  nothing  to 
stand  on.  I  do  not  share  this  belief.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  develop  a  system  of  metaphysics;  but  I  shall  suggest  a 
few  points  of  view  from  which  the  matter  may  be  considered. 

*  Notes  to  WestSstlicher  Divan. 


\ 


426 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


It  is  true  that  the  belief  in  gods  as  individuals  resembling 
human  beings,  having  an  empirical  existence  somewhere  and 
occasionally  acting  upon  our  world,  is  dying  out  and  will  never 
be  revived.  And  it  is  immaterial  whether  we  assume  several 
such  beings  or  only  a  single  one.  A  monotheistic  scheme, 
which  conceives  God  as  an  individual  by  the  side  of  others 
and  permits  him  occasionally  to  act  upon  the  world  as  upon 
something  external  and  foreign  to  him,  does  not  essentially 
differ  from  polytheism.  If  it  be  insisted  that  such  a  concep- 
tion alone  can  be  regarded  as  theism,  it  will  be  hard  to  contra- 
dict those  who  claim  that  science  leads  to  atheism.  We 
should,  however,  have  to  add  that  atheism  in  this  sense  is  evi- 
dently not  the  end  but  only  the  beginning  of  philosophy.  It 
is  not  a  positive  theory  of  reality,  but  simply  negates  the  view 
that  there  exists  before,  outside  of,  by  the  side  of,  above,  the 
world  a  separate  being  who  made  the  world,  as  a  watchmaker 
constructs  a  clock,  according  to  a  plan,  and  now  occasionally 
interferes  with  its  course.  The  repudiation  of  a  false  theory 
is,  however,  not  itself  a  theory.  The  question  remains  :  How 
shall  we  explain  the  universe,  how  is  it  constructed,  what  is 
its  essence  ? 

Or  is  that  no  longer  a  problem  ?  Is  it  perhaps  a  settled 
fact  that  the  world  is  nothing  but  an  accumulation  of  an 
infinite  number  of  little  bodies,  which  accidentally  congre- 
gating in  empty  space,  come  into  reciprocal  action  with  each 
other,  and  in  this  way  produce  the  particular  combinations 
which  reality  reveals  to  us  ? 

There  are  persons  who  regard  this  view  almost  as  self- 
evident.  It  is  especially  common  among  young  people  who 
have  just  discarded  their  school  notions,  and  have  substituted 
for  them  a  few  ideas  gathered  from  popular  scientific  writ- 
ings. It  is  rarely  held  by  the  deeper  and  more  independent 
thinkers ;  indeed  such  men  are  not  easily  persuaded  that  any- 
thing is  self-evident.  Neither  Plato  nor  Aristotle,  Spinoza 
nor  Leibniz,  Hume  nor  Kant,  Schopenhauer  nor  Hegel,  Lotze 


THE  RELATION   OF  MORALITY   TO   RELIGION       427 


nor  Fechner,  Mill  nor  Spencer,  was  able  to  convince  himself 
of  the  adequacy  of  the  theory.  And  in  truth,  no  one  can 
regard  it  as  self-evident  unless  he  is  anxious  to  have  an 
hypothesis  without  God,  and  therefore  refuses  to  subject  the 
view  to  a  closer  examination.  When  we  look  into  the  matter 
a  little  more  carefully,  we  find  some  rather  strange  and  sur- 
prising results.  So  the  world  consists  of  innumerable  abso- 
lutely self-sufficient  atoms,  absolutely  independent  of  each 
other  in  essence  and  being,  each  existing  for  itself,  and  re- 
gardless of  all  the  rest  ?  But  then  how  does  it  happen  that 
all  of  them  really  do  have  regard  for  each  other,  so  much 
so  that,  according  to  the  assumptions  of  the  physicist,  the 
behavior  of  each  element  is  uniformly  determined  by  that 
of  all  the  others  ?  For  that  is  what  the  law  of  universal  in- 
teraction means:  it  asserts  no  more  and  no  less  than  that 
the  totality  of  all  physical  processes  constitutes  but  one 
single  large  interconnected  process.  Is  not  the  actual  be- 
havior of  the  atoms  somewhat  surprising  in  the  light  of  the 
above  theory  ?  Should  we  not  rather  expect  each  atom, 
since  it  is  absolutely  independent,  to  act  in  an  absolutely  inde- 
pendent way,  regardless  of  all  the  rest  ?  Or  are  the  atoms 
compelled  by  the  laws  of  nature  to  agree  with  each  other  ?  — 
But  the  laws  are  nothing  but  the  expression  of  the  actual 
behavior  of  these  atoms,  not  something  existing  for  itself 
and  controlling  them  from  without.  —  And  how  astonishing 
that  these  atoms  which  have  come  into  the  world  without 
any  regard  for  each  other,  should  exhibit  such  a  similarity 
of  essence  and  behavior  that  it  can  be  expressed  in  uni- 
versal formulas!  Should  we  not  rather  have  to  regard  an 
infinite  diversity  of  essence  and  behavior  as  a  priori  probable  ? 
And  how  strange,  moreover,  that  so  much  should  be  evolved 
from  these  atoms:  cosmic  systems,  organic  bodies, beings  who 
feel  and  think  !  How  remarkable  that  such  processes  should 
arise  by  a  mere  change  in  the  arrangement  of  those  little 
pebbles  of  which  the  world  is  said  to  be  composed  !    Would  the 


428  CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 

atomist  not  be  surprised  if  he  had  never  seen  the  world  as  it 
now  is,  but  had  merely  observed  the  assumed  chaos  of  atoms, 
and  should  suddenly,  after  trying  all  sorts  of  combmations, 
hit  upon  sensations  and  thoughts  ?  Would  he  not  perhaps  say  : 
It  seems  that  there  is  something  more  in  the  atoms  than  ex- 
tension and  motion  ?  Would  he  not  even  conclude :  After 
all  reality  cannot  be  constructed  out  of  atoms,  however 
simple  the  matter  may  at  first  have  seemed ;  in  some  form 
or  other  unity  and  spirituality  must  be  assumed  as  origmal ; 
it  is  not  possible  to  conceive  them  as  the  accidental  results  of 

the  conjunction  of  atoms  ? 

We  might,  by  continuing  these  reflections,  reach  a  view  like 
that  which  Spinoza  logically  formulated  in  his  Mhics:  The 
world  or  reality  is  an  absolutely  unitary  heing,  fi  substance  ; 
the  particular  things,  which  at  first  seem  independent,  are 
in  truth  only  dependent  manifestations  of  the  essence  of  the 
universal  being.     The  All-One  unfolds  itself  in  a  dual  world 
of  modifications,  in  a  world  of  conscious  processes  and  m 
a  world  of  processes  of  motion  ;  between  them  there  is  uni- 
versal parallelism.    The  laws  of  nature,  which  govern  each 
of  the   two   worlds,    and   are   conceivable   by   thought,   are 
nothing  but  forms  of  the  self-determination  of  the  All-Real ; 
and  the  latter  is  not  pushed  or  shoved  from  without  by 
mechanical  compulsion  -  for  there  is  nothing  outside  of  it 
that  could   push  or  shove   it -but,  yielding  to  the   mner 
impulse  or  craving,  it  unfolds  its  essence  in  the  fulness  of 
reality  and  is  itself  its  own  and  free  cause. 

Had  not  Spinoza  been  too  deeply  absorbed  in  his  anti- 
theological  and  antiteleological  speculations,  he  would  have 
made  the  following  additions  to  these  conceptions:  Our 
knowledge  of  the  universe  is  in  the  main  a  physical  and  as- 
tronomical knowledge,  dealing  with  the  outside  of  things. 
Their  inner  side,  the  world  of  consciousness,  which  our  uni- 
versal metaphysical  speculation  discovered  to  be  as  far-reach- 
ing as  the  world  of  motion,  is  not  so  open  to  observation. 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      429 


Everybody  has  immediate  knowledge  of  it  only  in  so  far  as 
he  experiences  it  in  his  own  inner  self.  Reasoning  by  anal- 
ogy we  infer  from  the  bodily  manifestations  the  existence  of 
an  inner  life  in  the  human  and  animal  world.  Assisted  by 
the  written  and  spoken  word,  we  attain  to  some  knowledge 
of  the  historical-mental  life  of  humanity.  Of  a  superhuman 
spiritual  life  we  have  absolutely  no  knowledge.  We  interpret 
the  soul-life  of  animals  by  means  of  the  lower  manifestations 
of  our  own  inner  life.  This  is  all  we  can  do  here.  We  read 
into  the  higher  spiritual  life  conceived  by  metaphysics  the 
highest  phases  of  our  being.  In  this  sense  we  attribute  to 
God,  or  the  All-Real,  wisdom,  goodness,  justice,  and  holiness. 
We  do  not  intend  thereby  to  define  His  essence  theoretically, 
that  is  utterly  impossible  ;  we  shall  not  even  dare  to  attribute 
reason  and  will  to  Him,  reason  and  will  are  perhaps  only 
earthly  powers,  just  as  sight  and  hearing  are  possibly  merely 
earthly  organs.  We  simply  mean  that  we  desire  to  imagine 
His  essence  in  the  form  of  the  most  perfect  things  of  which 
we  know.  Art  has  always  pictured  God  in  human  form, 
and  will  continue  to  do  so;  here  we  do  not  really  intend 
to  attribute  such  a  form  to  God ;  we  simply  use  the  human 
countenance,  the  most  perfect  and  important  form  of  cor- 
poreality that  we  have,  as  a  symbol  of  absolute  perfection.  So, 
too,  we  use  the  spiritual  form  of  the  most  perfect  humanity 
as  a  symbol  of  God's  essence,  which  we  cannot  imagine  and 

conceive,  y/ 

And  ill  thlB  we  seem  simply  to  be  following  the  sugges- 
tions of  reality  itself.  The  earth,  the  only  member  of  the 
universal  system  with  which  we  are  in  any  degree  familiar,  is 
predisposed  to  organic  life,  and  tends  to  realize  it.  Organic 
life  in  turn  aims  at  mental  life,  which  reaches  its  goal  in 
man.  What  Speculative  Philosophy  defined  in  logical  con- 
cepts, modern  biology  attempts  to  represent  as  a  process  of 
historical  evolution.  If  now  we  discard  the  false  concepts  of 
causality,  according  to  which  the  cause  pushes  or  forces  the 


430 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


effect  into  existence,  so  to  speak,  and  conceive  it,  with  Lotze, 
as  the  spontaneous  organization  of  all  parts  or  members  of 
reality  into  a  unified  system  of  motion  or  change,  we  can 
rightly  say  :  The  process  of  development  of  our  planet,  which 
culminates  in  human  historical  life,  is  moved  or  attracted  by 
this  its  highest  content  as  its  goal.  And  in  a  similar  man- 
ner, to  follow  Aristotle,  the  All  is  moved  or  attracted  by  God 

as  its  goal. 

Our  conception  of  the  moral  laws  as  laws  of  nature,  that  is, 
laws  of  mental-historical  life,  suggests  the  same  view.  Since 
historical  life  is  a  part  of  universal  life,  the  moral  laws  too 
must  be  based  upon  the  essence  of  the  universe,  and  give 
expression  to  it.  Yes,  we  shall  say,  if  human  mental  life  is 
the  highest  and  fullest  development  of  inner  life  of  which 
we  know,  then  the  moral  laws  are  for  us  the  highest  forms 
of  the  self-determination  of  the  All-Real.  Here,  too,  the 
new  biology  serves  as  a  bond  of  union  between  nature  and 
history.  This  notion  agrees  with  the  old  saying  of  Hera- 
clitus:  All  laws  are  nourished  by  one  divine  law.  And 
Goethe  says  the  same: 

So  im  Kleinen  ewig,  wie  im  Grossen 
Wirkt  Natur,  wirkt  Menschengeist,  und  beide 
Sind  ein  Abglanz  jenes  Urlichts  droben, 
Das  unsichtbar  alle  Welt  erleuchtet. 

In  this  sense  we  may  conclude  with  Bacon :  "  Undoubtedly 
a  superficial  tincture  of  philosophy  may  incline  the  mind  to 
atheism,  yet  a  farther  knowledge  brings  it  back  to  religion."  ^ 

It  is  true,  not  all  the  philosophers  mentioned  above  have 
accepted  this  world -formula,  although  no  system  has  fewer 
opponents  than  this.  But  they  all  agree  that  reality  is  far 
from  being  simple  and  perfectly  intelligible.  They  all 
declare,  in  some  form  or  another,  that  the  universe  is  a 
wonderful  miracle,  whose  infinite  depths  even  the  profoundest 
human  thoughts  cannot  fathom.     And  they  all  assert,  each  in 

A  [Advancement  of  Learning,  Bk.  I.J 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      431 

his  own  way,  that  it  behooves  man  reverently  to  acknowledge 
the  infinite  and  unfathomable. 

Forsooth,  we  must  confess  that,  remarkable  though  the 
progress  of  science  has  been  during  the  last  few  centuries,  it 
has  utterly  failed  to  solve  the  great  riddle  of  existence.  In- 
deed, the  mystery  seems  to  have  deepened  and  to  have  grown 
more  wonderful.  The  more  we  study  the  universe,  the  more 
immeasurable  seem  its  depths,  the  more  inexhaustible  the 
variety  and  wealth  of  its  forms.  How  simple  and  intelligible 
was  the  world  of  Aristotle  and  St.  Thomas ;  into  what  incon- 
ceivable abysses  astronomy  and  physics  have  since  led  us ! 
The  billions  of  miles,  years,  and  vibrations,  with  which  these 
sciences  reckon,  carry  the  imagination  to  the  dizzy  edge  of 
infinity.  With  what  profound  secrets  of  its  organization, 
development,  and  existence  biology  sees  herself  confronted, 
now  that  she  has  learned  to  manipulate  the  microscope,  and 
has  called  evolutionary  science  to  her  aid:  back  to  what 
infinite  beginnings  progressive  historical  research  stretches 
the  life  of  man,  which  a  few  centuries  ago  seemed  so  clearly 
and  distinctly  bounded  by  the  creation  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  judgment  day  on  the  other!  So  far  is  science  from 
having  transformed  the  world  into  a  simple  problem  of 
arithmetic !  Science  does  not  carry  the  thinking  man  to  the 
end  of  things,  she  merely  gives  him  an  inkling  of  the  illimit- 
ableness  of  the  universe.  She  arouses  in  those  who  serve  her 
with  a  pure  heart,  not  pride,  but  feelings  of  deep  humility 
and  insignificance.  These  are  the  feelings  which  inspired 
Kant  and  Newton.  Goethe,  too,  is  full  of  this  thought,  which 
runs  through  his  Prose  Maxims  QSpruche  in  Prosa)  and  his 
Conversations  with  Eckermann  :  "  The  greatest  blessing  that 
can  befall  a  thinking  man  is  to  fathom  what  can  be  fathomed 
and  silently  to  adore  the  unfathomable." 

This  feeling  of  awe  in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite  from 
which  our  life  springs,  and  into  which  it  flows,  forms  the  root 
of  our  religious  conception  of  things.     Reverence   includes 


432 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


two  elements,  humility  and  trust;  humility,  the  feeling  of 
our  own  littleness  and  insignificance  in  the  presence  of  the 
Infinite  ;  trust,  the  feeling  that  the  Infinite  is  not  merely  an 
external  transcendent  force,  but  harbors  and  bears  within  its 
bosom  our  own  life  and  striving  as  something  that  was  created 
by  it  and  cannot  be  lost.  Of  such  feelings  the  heart-beats  of 
religion  consist.  The  ideas  in  which  it  clothes  itself,  the 
conceptual  formulae  in  which  philosophers  and  theologians 
attempt  to  comprehend  the  ideas,  constitute  the  accidental 
and  transitory  element  in  religion.  The  value  of  these  ideas 
and  concepts  consists  in  this:  they  are  symbols  in  which 
feeling  objectifies  itself,  and  make  religious  fellowship  and 
communion  possible;  for  no  religion  can  exist  except  in  a 
permanent  social  life.  The  individual  participates  in  it  as  he 
participates  in  language  and  poetry,  morals  and  law. — 
Besides,  conceptual  formulae  have  never  exerted  the  greatest 
influence  in  the  world  ;  art,  which  Goethe  calls  the  mediator 
of  the  ineffable,  and  worship,  with  which  the  former  is  most 
intimately  connected,  have  always  been  more  important  bearers 
and  creators  of  religious  life ;  it  is  their  function  to  express 
man's  relation  to  the  suprasensuous  in  a  sensuous-visible 

manner. 

Now  I  believe  that  these  feelings  are  qualities  of  human 
nature  which  will  never  be  lost.    The  forms  in  which  they 
are  clothed  will  continue  to  change,  their  essence  will  remain. 
Whatever  conceptions  scientific  research  may  form  of  reality, 
there  will  always  be  room  for  religious  feeling.     Religion  will 
never  die  out ;  it  satisfies  the  innermost  and  deepest  needs  of 
the  human  soul.     In  order  that  it  may  not  be  stricken  with 
pride  and  blindness  in  prosperity,  the  heart  must  turn  heaven- 
ward, thankfully  and  joyfully  accepting  its  happiness,  not  as 
something  due  to  its  own  merit,  but  as  a  gift  of  grace.     In 
the   death   of   its  hopes  and  plans  it  must  remember  that 
earthly  things  have  no  absolute  worth  ;  in  its  absolute  uncer- 
tainty concerning  all  human  things,  and  in  its  ignorance  of  its 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY   TO   RELIGION       433 

own  future,  that  it  may  not  fall  into  baneful  superstition,  it 
needs  the  trust  that  whatever  may  come  is  meant  as  a  bless- 
ing. It  is  surely  not  an  accident  that  wherever  this  belief 
disappears  superstition  spreads. 

I  also  believe  that  the  hearts  of  the  best  men  always  have 
been  and  always  will  be  most  susceptible  to  religious  feeling. 
The  purer  and  more  beautiful  a  human  soul,  the  more  capable 
will  it  be  of  that  reverence  which  constitutes  the  basis  of  reli- 
gion ;  the  more  seriously  and  profoundly  it  regards  life,  the 
more  humbly  will  it  acknowledge  how  far  short  it  falls  of  its 
ideals.  The  greater  and  freer  the  aspirations  of  a  man,  the 
stronger  and  more  intense  will  be  his  faith  in  the  ultimate 
victory  of  the  good  cause. 

4.  But,  it  will  be  said,  how  does  it  happen  that  so  many 
serious,  able,  and  truth-loving  men  of  our  times  not  only  stand 
outside  of  the  church,  but  neither  have  nor  even  claim  to  have 
religion  in  any  form  ?  Granting  the  truth  of  this  statement  — 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  we  can  doubt  it  —  we  may  perhaps 
explain  it  as  follows :  First,  the  capacity  for  religion  is  not 
equally  developed  in  all  individuals.  There  are  men  in  whom 
intellect  or  will  so  strongly  preponderates,  as  to  hinder  the 
growth  of  the  more  refined  and  freer  emotions.  The  story  is 
told  that  a  mathematician,  after  having  listened  to  the  read- 
ing of  a  poem,  impatiently  inquired :  What  does  it  prove  ? 
His  mind  was  so  set  upon  demonstrations  that  there  was  no 
place  nor  interest  in  it  for  anything  else;  from  nature  he 
learned  nothing  except  that  she  gave  him  problems  to  solve. 
Darwin  seems  to  have  passed  through  a  similar  experience. 
He  tells  us  how  his  taste  for  poetry  gradually  disappeared. 
Indeed,  no  one  will  wholly  escape  these  influences  who  devotes 
his  entire  strength  to  a  scientific  task.  Others  are  so  deeply 
interested  in  practical  problems  as  to  care  for  nothing  except 
what  bears  on  these.  They  may  be  honest,  efficient,  and 
good  men,  but  we  cannot  regard  them  as  normally  developed. 
An  essential  phase  of  their  inner  life  seems  to  be  wanting, 

28 


434 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


that  part  of  it,  namely,  by  which  human  nature  senses  beauty, 
poetry,  and  freedom.     We  may  perhaps  say  that  our  age  is 
especially  productive  of  men  of  this  stamp.     The  division  of 
labor,  the  mechanization  of  life,  specialism,  which  constitute 
the  glory  of  the  present,  apparently  favor  such  a  one-sided 
development.     Many  are  proud  of  their  limitations,  not  to  say 
narrowness.      The  old    Greek  philosophers,  the    mediaeval 
scholars,  the  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies,  came  into  broader  and  freer  touch  with  the  universe 
than  many  of  the  investigators  of  the  present,  who  begin  to 
delve  in  some  special  field,  and  then,  buried  in  their  shafts, 
see  nothing  of  heaven  or  of  earth.     Similar  one-sidedness  re- 
suits  from  the  extreme  devotion  to  an  official  or  industrial 
sphere  of  activity,  which  the  present  demands.     Life  used  to 
he  simpler  and  more  versatile,  our  relations  to  men  and  things 
were  more  varied,  and  hence  fancy  was  more  active,  and  the 
emotional  life  richer  and  more  uniform.     Specialism,  and  par- 
ticularly  scientific  specialism,  encourages  the   feeling  least 
favorable  to  religious  life,  that  is,  pride.     I  read  somewhere 
that  the  salamanders  living  in  the  stalactitic  caves  of  Car- 
niola  have  lost  their  visioQ,  according  to  a  well-known  law  of 
biology  that  organs  which  are  not  exercised  disappear.     It 
would  seem  that  the  science-specialists  of  our  age  often  meet 
with  a  similar  fate.     Accustomed  as  they  become,  by  constant 
practice,  to  the  microscopic  view  of  things,  in  philology  and 
history  as  well  as  in  natural  science,  they  gradually  diminish 
and  finally  lose  entirely  the  power  to  see  things  in  their  great 
connections.     And  in  the  same  ratio  the  tendency  develops 
to  regard  all  those  who  do  not  see  the  little  things  as  stupid 
ignoramuses,  and  all  those  who  strive  to  insert  them  into  a 
larger  whole,  as  meddlesome  and  fantastic  bunglers.     Is  it 
not  possible   that  the  blind  salamanders,  groping  about  in 
the  darkness  of  their  caves,  have  the  same  contempt  for  those 
that  see,  and  regard  eyes  as  dilettantic  organs  of  orientation  ? 
Another  circumstance,  which  causes  a  great  deal  of  conf  u- 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      435 

sion  and  unhappiness,  has  the  same  effect :  the  contradiction 
between  our  professions  and  our  real  convictions.  The  creed 
contains  much  that  sounds  strange  to  us  now,  for  example, 
the  belief  in  miracles  and  demons.  No  one  objected  to  these 
things  as  late  as  three  hundred  years  ago.  But  with  the 
triumph  of  the  scientific  mode  of  thought,  which  starts  from 
the  hypothesis  of  the  universal  reign  of  law,  and  then  seeks 
to  verify  it  in  particular  cases,  the  intellect  has  come  to  rebel 
somewhat  strongly  against  miracles  and  magic.  There  may 
be  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamed  of  in 
our  philosophy,  as  witness  the  hypnotic  phenomena,  the  reality 
of  which  we  found  it  so  hard  to  acknowledge.  But  the  ten- 
dency to  consider  all  phenomena  as  obeying  the  universal 
order  of  nature,  as  uniform  occurrences,  whose  formula  must 
be  discovered,  will  not  disappear  again,  unless  science  itself 
perishes.  And  no  intelligent  man  would  welcome  such  a 
calamity ;  the  decline  of  science  would  prepare  the  soil  for 
the  rank  weed  of  superstition.  We  are  here  confronted  with 
an  alternative ;  there  are  riddles,  says  science,  which  we  can- 
not, as  yet,  solve,  but  there  are  no  miracles,  no  occurrences 
which  exclude,  in  principle,  the  possibility  of  a  natural 
explanation. 

The  Biblical  miracles  are  no  exception  to  this  rule ;  they 
belong  to  a  category  of  world-views  which  has  disappeared, 
and  cannot  long  survive  them.  If  we  accept  the  Biblical 
miracles,  we  must  also  admit  the  possibility  of  modern 
miracles.  If  we  have  not  the  courage  or  find  it  impossible  to 
accept  the  latter,  at  least  in  the  Protestant  world,  we  must 
draw  the  logical  conclusion,  and  repudiate  the  former  also. 
Protestant  theology  evidently  appreciates  the  situation ;  it  at- 
tempts to  set  a  limit  to  miracles  or  to  discard  them  altogether, 
e.g.^  by  interpreting  them  naturally  or  by  explaining  them 
away  exegetically.  This  was  the  method  of  old  rationalism, 
and  it  gave  rise  to  many  artificial  and  forced  interpretations. 
Nevertheless,  such  a  procedure  was  perhaps  more  honest  and 


436 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


also  more  appropriate  than  a  later  one  in  which  the  attempt 
is  made  to  complicate  the  question  by  all  kinds  of  so-called 
speculative  considerations  or  critical  investigations  of  the 
sources,  and  so  to  avoid  taking  a  definite  stand  in  the  matter. 
The  impartial  reader  is  apt  to  feel  that  such  investigations 
are  intended  to  confuse  him  and  to  conceal  from  him  the 
author's  failure  to  reach  any  decision  whatever. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  church  can  again  win  the  confi- 
dence of  thinking  men  until  she  decides  to  discard  the  belief 
in  miracles.  All  these  endeavors  to  make  the  miracles  appear 
credible,  simply  serve,  I  fear,  to  increase  the  distrust. 

Besides,  it  may  perhaps  be  shown  that  miracles  not  only 
contradict  the  scientific  conceptions  of  our  age,  but  also  the 
spirit  of  our  religious  faith.     They  really  belong  to  the  poly- 
theistic  stage  in  the  evolution  of  theism  ;  gods  work  miracles, 
God  works  no  miracles.     According  to  the  dogma   of  the 
church,  God  originally  created  all  things  out  of  nothing,  and 
it  is  He  who  is  constantly  keeping  them  in  existence ;  they 
do  not  exist  through  themselves.     That  is,  stated  in  different 
words :  God  alone  is  an  independent  being,  all  things  are  and 
exist,  not  in  themselves,  but  in  Him  ;  or  according  to  Spinoza's 
formula:  God  is  the  substance,  the  things  are  modifications 
of  His  essence.     Miracles  presuppose  a  different   relation  of 
God  to  the  world:    God,  a  particular  being,  by  the  side  of 
other  beings,  upon  which  He  occasionally  acts  arbitrarily,  but 
which,  in  other  respects,  have  their  own  reality.     Miracles 
are  exceptional  effects,  they  are  makeshifts,  by  which  the 
world,  which  usually  runs  its  own  course,  is  corrected  from 
without.    Fetiches  and  gods  only  can  work   by   miracles. 
The  all-powerful  God  of  the  first  article,  however,  is  an  all- 
active  God,  and  such  a  God  works  no  miracles.     Whoever 
takes  monotheism  seriously,  whoever  regards  the  difference 
between   monotheism  and    polytheism  not  as   a  numerical 
difference,  but  as  a  difference  in  the  divine  essence,  and  does 
not  look  upon  God  as  the  only  survivor  of  a  great  host  of 


THE   RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO   RELIGION       437 

gods,  whoever  interprets  monotheism  to  mean  that  God 
alone  truly  exists,  cannot  at  the  same  time  believe,  without 
contradicting  himself,  that  He  reveals  Himself  in  miracles 
and  signs.  And  it  is  equally  plain  that  theurgic  practices 
of  all  kinds,  aiming  to  produce  changes  in  the  course  of 
nature,  are  necessarily  connected  with  the  polytheistic  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  the  gods. 

Nor  should  we  hide  from  ourselves  the  consequences  of 
such  an  historico-critical  "  abstinence-policy  "  as  was  men- 
tioned before.  The  objection  is  raised  to  Strauss's  criticism 
that  it  is  dogmatic  and  not  historical.  Thus  Bishop  Mar- 
tensen  of  Zealand  tells  us  in  his  Autobiography'^  that  he 
noticed,  immediately  after  reading  the  book  for  the  first  time, 
that  "  the  Life  of  Jesus ,  which  pretends  to  adhere  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  free  thought,  proceeds  from  a  crass  dogmatism :  for 
Strauss  boldly  assumes  that  miracles  are  not  possible." 
To  be  sure,  if  we  should  have  to  regard  miracles  as  possible 
and  true,  until  historical  criticism  had  proved  beyond  a  doubt, 
in  case  of  each  and  every  one  of  them,  that  the  account  of  it 
was  founded  upon  error,  deception,  or  fraud,  they  would  be 
safe  for  all  time.  We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  the 
same  certainty  would  attach  to  the  countless  miracles  which 
are  mentioned  in  the  literature  of  antiquity  and  the  Middle 
Ages.  They  may  all  be  defended  against  a  "  groundless  nega- 
tive criticism"  by  the  objection  that  their  sources  have  not,  as 
yet,  been  sufficiently  investigated  to  compel  us  to  abandon 
them ;  and  that  it  is  crass  dogmatism  to  assert  their  impos- 
sibility a  priori :  why,  for  example,  should  it  be  unthinkable 
that  thunder  and  lightning,  the  flight  of  birds,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  entrails  stand  in  some  relation  to  human  affairs, 
be  it  through  supernatural  intervention  or  through  pre- 
established  harmony  ? 

It  would,  in  my  opinion,  be  no  loss,  at  least  to  the  Protes- 
tant church,  should  these  things  be  entirely  discarded.    It  may 

1  L,  142. 


438 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


h.  ' 


be  that  miracles  and  signs  were  once  needed  to  strengthen 
the  faith  of  the  church ;  at  present  they  merely  discredit  it. 
The  story  is  told  that  F.  A.  Wolf  once  chose  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark,  as  the  subject  of  his  lectures ; 
but  when  he  came  to  the  fifth  chapter,  to  the  story  of  the  cast- 
ing  out  of   devils  in  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes,  and  the 
events  following  it,  he  laid  the  book  aside  forever.     Why  did 
he  not  find  the  same  fault  with  the  ghost-stories  and  the 
fables  in  Homer?     Surely  because  he  did  not  have  to  be- 
lieve them,  because  he  was  allowed  to  take  them  for  what 
they  were  worth.     The  Gospels  certainly  contain  wonderfully 
serious  and  important  matters,  much  more  important  matters 
than  the  works  of  Homer ;  but  Wolf  could  not  see  them  on 
account  of  these   miserable    Gadarene  swine.      For  another 
person  Balaam's  ass  or  a  similar  calamity  proves  to  be  the 
stumbling-block.     He  is  taught  in  the  schools  to  take  such 
things  literally;    the   miracles   are    perhaps   emphasized  as 
especially  important  facts  and  as  corroborating  the  truth  of 
all  the  other  contents.      As   soon   as  he   escapes  from  the 
school-room,  and  his  impulse  to  believe  and  to  doubt  is  no 
longer  subjected  to  compulsion,  he  revenges  himself  by  repu- 
diating these  books  once  and  for  all ;  to  his  own  detriment 
of  course,  but  not  wholly   through    his   own   fault.      How 
wonderful,    deep,    poetically   affecting,   are  the  stories   with 
which  legend  has  surrounded  the  birth  of  Jesus  :  the  annun- 
ciation, the  appearance  of  the  angels  among  the  shepherds, 
and  the  gloria  in  excehis,  the  star,  which  appeared  to  the 
wise  men  of  the  East,  and  showed  them  the  way  to  the 
new-born  babe,  the  Savior  of  the  world,  the  flight  to  Egypt ; 
how  full  of  meaning  is  the  story  of  the  temptation,  of  the 
feeding  of  the  multitude,  of  the  catching  of  the  fishes.     But 
who  can  endure  a  sermon  that  uses  these  narratives  to  con- 
tradict rationalism,  and  to  prove  their  literal  possibility  and 
truth  ?    Demonstrations  are   absolutely   out  of  place   here ; 
where  these  stories  are  accepted  with  the  old  faith,  proof 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      439 

is  superfluous;  where  the  faith  is  gone,  such  arguments 
will  never  bring  it  back,  they  will  simply  destroy  the  poetical 
effect,  and  produce  distrust,  which  will  spread  from  point 
to  point  until  it  has  finally  eaten  away  all  faith  and  all 
religion. 

If,  in  addition  to  this,  the  church  undertakes  to  defend  the 
creed  by  outward  means,  if  the  worldly  powers  aid  her  therein 
to  their  utmost,  and  if  rewards  are  bestowed  upon  ostensible 
orthodoxy,  and  punishments  inflicted  upon  its  opposite, — 
then  the  sincerest  natures  will  be  the  first  to  assume  an 
attitude  of  decided  hostility,  they  will  look  upon  the  creed 
as  the  Caudine  Forks  through  which  the  path  leads  to  ap- 
pointment and  promotion,  as  the  praemium  servitutis.  History 
shows  it ;  for  example,  the  history  of  the  forties  and  fifties ; 
but  who  heeds  her  warnings  ?  It  seems  to  be  fated  that  all 
the  absurdities  of  humanity  should  be  produced  anew  with 
every  generation.  So,  too,  the  attempt  is  periodically  made  to 
bolster  up  religion  by  means  of  outward  force.  And  the  con- 
sequences are  always  the  same  ;  human  nature  rebels  against 
what  is  forced  upon  it,  and  philosophers  assert  that  such 
methods  are  absolutely  contrary  to  human  nature.  If  the  ex- 
periment could  be  made  to  employ  force,  not  in  behalf  of,  but 
against  religion  —  an  experiment  which  the  first  French  revo- 
lution actually  tried,  and  which  presumably  will  be  tried  again 
in  some  form  or  other  —  it  would  be  found  how  deeply  re- 
ligion is  rooted  in  the  heart  of  man. 

5.  Let  me  also  consider  briefly  the  relation  between  the 
belief  in  immortality  and  morality.  It  has  long  been  believed 
and  is  still  claimed  at  the  present  time  that  the  belief  in  im- 
mortality, in  the  sense  that  death  is  followed  by  another  life, 
is  the  keystone  of  all  morality.  If  this  life  were  the  end  of 
everything,  virtue  would  be  an  empty  dream ;  then  it  would 
be  the  part  of  wisdom  to  enjoy  the  moment. 

According  to  the  view  herein  presented,  morality  as  a 
science  does  not  depend  upon  this  belief.    The  latter  is  of 


I:i 


1^1 


ir': 


440 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


great  importance  to  conduct,  but  not  to  moral  philosophy. 
Ethics  will  not  change  a  single  proposition,  whether  there  be 
a  life  after  death  or  not.  The  moral  laws  are  natural  laws 
of  the  human  historical  life  existing  at  this  time  and  upon 
this  earth.  Should  this  life  be  the  preparation  for  another 
life,  we  could  not  give  the  slightest  indication  of  how  to  pre- 
pare ourselves  for  it  except  by  filling  our  present  life  with  a 
moral  content.  And  should  this  earthly  life  be  the  whole  of 
life,  the  same  course  would  be  advisable  and  necessary ;  nor 
would  such  a  life  need  another  as  a  reward,  it  would  be  a 
sufiicient  reward  in  itself. 

And  I  should  like  to  add  that  it  does  not  seem  advisable 
from  2i pedagogical  and  practical  standpoint,  to  make  the  truth 
or  the  value  of  the  moral  laws  dependent  upon  so  uncertain  a 
thing  as  the  belief  in  a  future  life.  For  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  this  belief  is  becoming  more  and  more  unsettled  in  our 
times ;  and  the  future  will  hardly  succeed  in  strengthening  it. 
It  is  being  undermined  by  the  increasing  spread  of  the  scien- 
tific and  anthropological  mode  of  thought.  The  conception  of 
a  life  after  death,  as  anthropology  shows  us,  is  a  dream  which 
all  peoples  have  dreamed  in  infinitely  different  forms.  The 
Indians  and  Esquimaux  dreamed  of  hunting  and  fishing 
grounds,  the  old  Germans  of  battles  and  drinking  bouts,  the 
Eastern  Mohammedans  of  beautiful  women  and  beautiful  gar- 
dens :  everywhere  the  imagination  creates  a  future  world,  in 
which  the  will  realizes  its  desire  for  happiness. 

Then  I  should  continue  as  follows.  Even  though  a  tem- 
poral life  after  death  were  a  dream,  that  would  not  make  the 
belief  in  immortality  a  wholly  vain  illusion  ;  we  have  here  in 
sensuous  garb  a  possible  and  perhaps  necessary  thought,  the 
thought  to  which  the  Kantian  philosophy  leads  :  The  temporal 
life  is  the  phenomenal  form  of  a   life  which  is   eternal  as 

such. 

Consider :  what  is  time  ?  The  form  of  reality  as  such  ? 
If  so,  to  be  in  time  would  be  the  condition  of  being  real.     Id 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      441 

that  case,  however,  we  should  have  to  say  further :  To  be  in 
the  present  is  the  condition  of  being  real ;  for  that  which  is 
not  in  the  present,  is  necessarily  either  past  and  hence  no 
longer  existent,  or  future  and  hence  not  yet  existent ;  there- 
fore that  only  is  real  which  is  in  the  present.  —  But  note  the 
consequence  :  absolutely  nothing  can  be  in  the  present ;  at 
the  moment  in  which  being  is  predicated  of  it,  it  has  already 
passed  with  the  moment ;  the  present  is  not  a  space,  but  a 
point.  To  be  in  the  present  can  therefore  not  be  the  con- 
dition of  being  real ;  if  reality  is  not  to  disappear  entirely, 
even  the  past  must  in  some  way  be  real,  and  hence  also  the 
future.  —  Perhaps  after  we  have  reflected  upon  this,  it  will 
be  easier  to  grant :  To  be  in  time  is  by  no  means  the  condi- 
tion of  being  real,  or,  to  speak  with  Kant:  Time  is  not  a 
form  of  reality,  but  a  form  of  our  sense-perception.  That 
which  appears  in  our  consciousness,  which  is  bound  to  -this 
form  of  intuition,  as  a  process  extending  through  time,  is  in 
and  for  itself  a  timeless  existence,  eternal.  Every  moment  of 
reality,  hence  also  a  human  life,  has  absolute  or  eternal  exist- 
ence in  reality.  It  is  irrational  to  think :  Death  ends  all,  for 
then  life  is  gone  and  annihilated,  and  it  is  just  as  though  it 
had  never  been.  A  life  can  in  no  wise  be  destroyed  by  death ; 
what  has  once  been  experienced  is  an  eternal  and  indelible 
constituent  of  reality,  never  more  to  be  erased  or  altered.  It 
is  a  foolish  doubt  which  Karl  Moor  expresses  with  the  pistol 
in  his  hand  :  "  If  the  paltry  pressure  of  this  paltry  thing 
makes  the  wise  man  and  the  fool,  the  coward  and  the  hero, 
the  noble  and  the  villain,  equal  —  "  That  cannot  be  ;  death 
severs  the  thread  of  the  earthly  life,  but  the  content  of  life 
can  neither  be  altered  nor  annihilated  by  it ;  reality  is  eternal 
in  its  essence,  nothing  that  is  real  can,  to  quote  Angelus 
Silesius,  ever  perish  and  cease  to  be.^ 

Are  these  useless,  abstract  reflections  ?    Perhaps  not  alto* 

1  Weil  die  Greachopfe  gar  in  Gottes  Wort  bestehn, 
Wie  konnen  sie  denn  je  zerwerden  and  vergehn  % 


■^J 


442 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


gether.  Whenever  we  appear  before  men,  even  though  it 
be  but  for  a  moment,  it  is  not  immaterial  to  us  what  pic- 
ture they  form  of  us;  we  know  that  it  will  hardly  abide 
with  them  for  a  second,  then  to  be  forgotten  forever,  and 
yet  we  take  care  that  it  may  not  be  a  repulsive  or  ugly  pic- 
ture. Countless  human  beings  have  lived  and  died  thinking 
of  the  picture  which  future  generations  will  form  of  them ; 
and  should  we  then  care  nothing  for  the  picture  which  is 
impressed,  not  upon  a  momentary  consciousness,  not  upon 
the  memory  of  the  succeeding  generations,  but,  as  it  were, 
upon  the  very  essence  of  reality  for  all  eternity  ?  And  not  a 
picture  merely  but  rather  our  very  being  ?  Should  we,  seek- 
ing only  the  enjoyment  of  the  moment,  be  careless  whether 
our  being  manifests  itself  forever  in  the  eternal  reality  as  a 
useless,  empty,  and  contemptible,  or  as  a  beautiful  and  good 

thing  ? 

But  the  world  has  no  consciousness,  and  I  myself  will  have 
no  consciousness;  and  what  do  I  care  for  an  existence  in 
which  neither  I  nor  any  one  else  is  to  have  consciousness  ? 

Well,  who  says  that  reality  is  without  consciousness  ?  May 
not  the  All-Real  have  an  absolute  consciousness  of  itself,  of 
its  essence  ?  Surely  the  thought  which  so  many  of  the  pro- 
foundest  thinkers  of  all  ages  regarded  as  a  necessary  thought, 
cannot  be  an  absurd  one.  The  divine  consciousness  will  be 
different  from  the  earthly-temporal  consciousness  of  man,  and 
we  cannot  conceive  it,  imagine  it,  or  describe  it.  But  who 
dares  to  assert  that  nothing  can  exist  except  what  he  can 
imagine  ?  —  And  who  will  claim  that  the  individual  beings, 
who  here  have  a  temporal  consciousness,  could  not  also 
possess  an  eternal  consciousness  ?  Why  should  not  a  being 
which  is  conscious  of  its  inner  life  as  a  process  extended  in 
time,  also  be  able  to  become  aware  of  it  sub  specie  cBterni- 
talis  f    Do  we  know  how  temporal  consciousness  arises,  and 

how  it  can  exist  ? 

And  we  might  point  out  how  consciousness  is  modified  with 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      443 

advancing  age.  Youth  lives  in  the  future.  But  the  past 
gradually  expands,  and  old  age  finds  rest  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  past  as  the  true  reality,  as  something  no  longer 
subject  to  change.  When  we  look  back  upon  the  past,  what 
is  it  that  determines  our  judgment  of  the  value  of  life  ?  The 
pleasure  which  it  yielded,  or  the  fact  that  it  was  a  worthy 
and  a  righteous  life  ?  Christian  moralists  constantly  exhort 
us  to  remember  death  and  to  be  mindful  of  eternity,  and 
to  act  and  to  live  as  though  we  were  in  the  presence  of 
death.  Indeed,  this  advice  is  as  sound  as  it  is  effective; 
death  is  really,  as  it  has  been  called,  a  good  professor  moralium. 
The  time  will  come  for  you,  whoever  you  may  be  and  what- 
ever you  may  think  and  believe, — even  though  not  until  your 
life  is  drawing  to  a  close, — when  it  will  be  absolutely  im- 
material to  you  what  pleasures  you  have  enjoyed  in  this 
world,  how  much  honor  and  wealth  you  have  won,  how  far 
you  have  succeeded  in  asserting  your  claims ;  the  time  will 
come,  even  though  not  until  you  are  on  your  death-bed,  when 
one  thing  alone  will  not  be  immaterial  to  you :  whether  you 
have  honestly  done  your  work  in  this  world,  however  great 
or  small  it  may  have  been,  as  a  righteous  man,  whether  you 
have  fought  the  battle  of  life  as  a  brave  and  faithful  soldier. 
Yes,  ask  yourself,  and  honestly  answer  the  question,  What  is 
it  that  really  pains  you  now  when  you  look  back  upon  your 
past  ?  Is  it  the  sorrows  you  have  suffered,  is  it  the  evils, 
the  injustice,  the  losses  which  you  have  borne  ?  Or  is  it  the 
sins  you  have  committed,  the  wrongs  you  have  inflicted  upon 
others,  the  injury  you  have  done  yourself,  contrary  to  your 
better  nature  ?  And  what  is  it  that  makes  you  happy,  what 
adds  value  to  your  life  in  your  eyes  ?  The  pleasures  and 
good  meals  ?  These  are  gone  and  will  never  more  delight 
you !  But  the  noble  and  honest  deeds  you  have  wrought,  the 
o"ood  you  have  done  to  others  at  the  sacrifice  of  your  own 
inclinations,  —  these  are  the  things  which  you  still  cherish  and 
hold  dear.    Does  this  not  express  an  immediate  conviction  on 


V 
1 1  ' 

I' 


11 


444 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


your  part  that  the  past  is  not  absolutely  vain  and  unreal, 
but  permanent  and  real?  for  what  do  we  care  for  the 
non-existent?  — Why,  you  say,  it  exists  in  memory.  —  Well, 
suppose  being  in  memory  were  the  real  being,  suppose  all 
recollection  formed  a  part  of  the  absolute  memory,  or  rather 
of  the  absolute  consciousness  of  God  ?  Then  life,  clearly 
seeing  itself  in  the  light  of  the  eternal  self-consciousness  of 
God,  would  be  engraven  upon  the  background  of  eternal  reality 

for  all  eternity.^ 

If  we  were  to  seek  for  terms  to  express  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity  in  philosophical  language,  we  should,  it  seems  to  me, 
be  forced  to  adopt  a  similar  formula.    The  Scriptures  tell  us 
that  the  eternal  life  is  not  a  sensuous -temporal  life,  but  a 
suprasensuous-eternal  life ;  that  it  does  not  consist  of  eating 
and  drinking,  but  of  an  unspeakable  glory  and  blessedness, 
or  its  opposite ;  that  the  end  of  this  earthly  life  destroys  the 
possibility  of  a  change  of  its  essence  and  hence  of  its  state, 
which  means  that  no  life  in  time  will  follow,  for  a  life  in  time 
without  change  is  something  that  cannot  possibly  be  con- 
ceived.    To  be  sure,  faith  does  not  rest  here,  in  these  abstract 
and  negative  expressions,  which  strip  off  the  sensuous  and  the 
temporal ;  it  soon  clothes  the  thought  of  a  non-sensuous-time- 
less life  in  the  forms  and  colors  of  the    sensuous-temporal 
life ;  it  speaks  of  a  city  of  God,  measures  its  length  and  its 
breadth,  builds  the  streets  of  gold  and  the  gates  of  pearls, 
makes  the  saints,  clothed  in  white  raiment  and  carrying  palms 
in  their  hands,  sing   songs  of  praise  to  God  and  the  Lamb ; 
while  hell  is  filled  by  the  imagination  with  repulsive  and 

1  The  mind  which  is  immortal  makes  itself 
Requital  for  its  good  or  evil  thoughts  — 
Is  its  own  origin  of  ill  and  end  — 
And  its  own  place  and  time :  its  innate  sense. 
When  stripp'd  of  this  mortality,  derives 
No  color  from  the  fleeting  things  without, 
But  is  absorbed  in  sufferance  or  in  joy, 
Bom  from  the  knowledge  of  its  own  desert. 

BTR0if*8  Manfred, 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      445 

horrible  phantoms.  These  are  images,  and  yet  not  merely 
images.  It  is  peculiar  to  faith  that  it  raises  itself  above  the 
sensuous  world,  and  yet  remains  in  it  and  clings  to  it ;  what 
it  throws  away  with  the  right  hand,  it  again  picks  up  with 
the  left.  The  entire  church  creed  moves  along  this  boundary 
between  the  sensuous  and  the  suprasensuous,  between  imagin- 
ation and  thought.  On  the  one  hand,  God  receives  no  qual- 
ities of  sensuous-temporal  finitude :  he  is  infinite,  omnipresent, 
eternal,  unchangeable;  and  then  again  he  possesses  the 
qualities  of  finite  beings :  he  thinks,  feels,  wills,  acts,  suffers, 
is  sorrowful  and  glad.  The  polytheistic  religions  naively 
attributed  sensuous-human  characteristics  to  the  gods;  this 
gave  them  their  aesthetic  perfection,  which  we  cannot  help 
admiring  in  the  Greek  gods  even  to  this  day.  Christianity 
assumed  a  different  relation  to  the  world  of  sense  from  the 
very  beginning.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  it  entered  a 
world  in  which  the  great  division  between  thought  and  imag- 
ination, which  were  originally  one,  had  long  ago  been  made  ; 
Xenophanes  and  Parmenides,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  had  not 
lived  in  vain.  But  it  did  not  always  adhere  to  the  division  ; 
the  pseudo-science  of  the  old  dogmatics  constantly  attempted 
again  to  unite  imagination  and  thought  into  one  system. 
Will  the  time  ever  come  which  will  recognize  the  futility  of 
these  endeavors,  and  decide  to  recognize  the  difference  be- 
tween thoughts  and  pictures,  concepts  and  symbols?  Will 
the  time  ever  come  which  will  have  the  courage  to  confess 
that  the  formulae  of  the  creed  are  symbols,  and  no  more 
adequate  definitions  of  the  divine  essence  and  activity  than 
the  pictures  of  Raphael  are  portraits  of  the  Holy  Family  ? 
Have  the  latter  no  value  in  case  they  are  not  exact  likenesses? 
What  would  be  the  result  if  a  pseudo-science  should  endeavor 
to  prove  the  portrait-character  of  these  pictures  ?  Would 
not  the  indignation  aroused  by  such  a  procedure,  vent  itself 
against  the  pictures  themselves,  especially  if  they  were  placed 
under  the  protection  of  the  authorities  ? 


1,^  i  V 


446 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


I 


pi 

m 


6.  The    foregoing    conception    of    the  relation  between 
morality   and   religion  has  been   criticised   by  Gizycki  in  a 
review  of  this  work  which  I  mentioned  above.^     It  seems  to 
him  that  I  underrate  a  valuable,  indeed  the  most  valuable, 
quality  of  a  man  of  science,  "  intellectual  honesty."     "  There 
really  are,"  he   says,  "some  intellectually  honest  men  who 
strive  after  the  truth  with  their  whole  souls,  who  desire  to 
possess  a  faithful  picture  of  the  world,  and  therefore  do  not 
allow  themselves  to  believe  anything  that  is  not  immediately 
self-evident,  or  cannot  be  deduced  with  logical  necessity  from 
such   absolutely   certain   principles."      The   above   view,   he 
believes,  does  not  do  these  men  justice.     He  mentions  a 
number  of  such  unbelievers,  and  compares  them  with  others 
who  combine  great  moral  defects  with  much  religion.     Lom- 
broso   has   shown   in   his   work   on    the    criminal   that   few 
criminals  are  unbelievers.      Gizycki  considers  the  facts  ad- 
duced by  Lombroso  as  very  suggestive.    I  confess  that  I  do 
not  find  them  so  to  any  great  extent.     That   criminals  are 
superstitious  is  not  surprising;  for  there  is  a  close  connec- 
tion between  crime,  intellectual  decay,  and  insanity.    It  is 
much  more   surprising    that  Lombroso,  and   following  him 
Gizycki,  should  so  naively  confuse  superstition  with  religion. 
—  But  as  for  those  sincere  and  honest  men  who  have  no  reli- 
gion, I  have  of  course  never  dreamed  6f  denying  either  their 
existence  or  their  integrity.    I  have  even  attempted  to  explain 
their  lack  of  religion  by  their  honesty.     Because  religion  is 
so  often  confused  and  adulterated  with  superstition,  religiosity 
with  hypocrisy,  sincere  natures  are  repelled,  and  so  repudiate 
all  "  faith,"  all  attempts  to  transcend  the  facts  adduced  by 
scientific   research.     I  did  not  reproach  them  for   this,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  follow  Gizycki,  and  regard  their 
attitude   as  deserving  especial  praise.      Nay,  I  cannot  help 
regarding  it  as  a  kind  of  narrowness,  particularly  when  it 
claims  to  be  the  only  proper  and  legitimate  attitude. 

^  See  p.  283. 


THE   RELATION   OF  MORALITY   TO   RELIGION      447 

Now,  is  it  really  true,  are  there  really  people  who  strictly 
adhere  to  the  principle,  "  not  to  believe  anything  that  is  not 
immediately  self-evident,  or  cannot  be  deduced  with  logical 
necessity  from  such  absolutely  certain  principles  ?  "  Do  not 
these  persons  also  form  notions  of  the  future,  either  of  their 
own  or  of  the  future  in  general,  which  partake  of  the  nature 
of  faith  ?  Do  not  they,  too,  make  use  of  unverified  elements 
to  construct  their  conceptions  of  reality  ?  Gizycki  quotes  a 
passage  from  an  American  author  in  his  Moral  Philosophy/  :^ 
^'  When  a  man  believes  things  simply  because  Christ  or  the 
Bible  says  so,  without  knowing  other  reasons,  then,  even 
though  his  belief  be  true,  the  truth  itself,  which  he  possesses, 
becomes  his  heresy;  —  it  is  wrong  to  accept  the  Bible  with- 
out investigation,  even  if  every  sentence  were  literally  true." 
—  Does  this  rigid  rule  apply  only  to  the  Bible  or  also  to  other 
books,  for  example,  to  the  collected  works  of  Lombroso  ?  I 
believe  that  it  could  do  no  harm  to  re-examine  the  generaliza- 
tion that  most  criminals  are  very  religious. 

But  that  is  most  likely  not  our  author's  meaning.  The 
rule  does  not  really  apply  to  the  world  of  empirical  facts,  in 
which  we  are  obviously  constantly  compelled  to  make  assump- 
tions without  ourselves  verifying  them,  but  to  the  world  of 
religious  faith,  to  the  faith  in  "  transcendent "  things.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter  I  defined  religion  provisionally  as 
faith  in  the  transcendent.  Gizycki  says  that  he  does  not 
know  what  I  mean  by  the  transcendent,  and  that  he  has  not 
been  able  to  form  a  clear  notion  of  it  from  my  remarks.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  am  not  altogether  to  blame  for  this.  To 
be  sure,  I  did  not  give  a  description  of  the  transcendent,  and 
I  do  not  intend  to  give  one  now ;  I  believe  that  Kant's  Criti- 
que has  put  an  end  to  such  attempts :  only  the  empirical  world 
is  an  object  of  description  and  of  knowledge.  But  I  am  also 
<;onvinced  with  Kant,  and  I  might  add,  with  Plato  and  Spinoza 

1  [P.  457.  The  author  is  Stanton  Coit,  Intellectual  Honesty  in  the  Pulpit,  New 
York,  1888.  — Tr] 


448 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


I* 

i 


and  Schopenhauer  and  a  thousand  others,  that  the  world  of 
our  experience,  or  nature,  is  not  the  world  in  and  for  itself, 
and  that  our  science  does  not  exhaust  reality.  But  what 
is  reality  in  itself?  I  do  not  know;  but  it  does  not  seem 
absurd  to  me  to  think  that  it  bears  a  closer  relation  to  my 
own  inner  experiences  than  may  at  first  sight  appear  to  one 
looking  at  it  from  the  outside,  with  the  eyes  of  the  physicist. 
All  philosophers,  the  materialists  alone  excepted,  are  agreed 
upon  this  point ;  in  addition  to  physical  being  they  attribute 
to  reality  a  metaphysical  essence  ;  they  merely  differ  in  their 
interpretation  of  the  latter.  This  thought  of  an  absolute 
being  becomes  faith  when  it  is  at  the  same  time  conceived  as 
absolute  goodness,  as  a  world  of  ideas,  as  a  divine  essence,  as 
a  kingdom  of  grace,  as  a  moral  world-order,  or  whatever  we 
may  choose  to  call  it. 

And  for  such  a  belief  Gizycki  demands  a  theoretically 
satisfactory  proof;  otherwise  it  must  be  rejected  as  super- 
stition. Gizycki  says  that  my  theological  reflections  sur- 
prise him.  Well,  I  confess  that  his  demands,  coming,  as 
they  do,  one  hundred  years  after  the  establishment  of  the 
Kantian  philosophy  in  Germany,  surprise  me.  Or  has  Kant 
become  antiquated,  has  his  philosophy  been  overthrown  and 
replaced,  say  by  the  advance  of  the  natural  sciences  or 
by  the  system  of  the  "  philosophy  of  reality  "  ?  ^  If  that  is 
Gizycki's  opinion,  we  are  unquestionably  pretty  far  apart,  too 
far  apart  to  be  able  to  settle  our  differences  here. 

But  I  should  also  like  to  add :  Gizycki  seems  to  be  afraid 
that  I  may,  after  all,  attempt  to  base  my  ethics  upon  theology 
or  metaphysics,  and  that  is  perhaps  the  ultimate  ground  of 
his  opposition.  Such  a  thing  is  really  far  from  my  thoughts. 
I  am  as  convinced  as  he  is  that  morality  can  and  must  be 
explained  purely  immanently.  But  it  may,  perhaps,  serve 
as  a  starting-point  and  support  for  metaphysics.     And  this 

1  [Wirklichkeitsphilosophie,    the    name   under  which  German  Positivism  is 
known.    See  Weber-Thilly,  p.  583,  note  1 .  —  Tr.] 


THE  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  TO  RELIGION      449 

is  precisely  what  I  believe.  If  we  wish  to  form  a  final  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  things  in  general,  we  shall  have  to 
take  into  consideration  not  only  the  facts  of  physics  and 
astronomy,  but  also  the  facts  of  our  inner  life,  and  especially 
those  with  which  moral  philosophy  is  concerned.  I  have 
repeatedly  emphasized  the  truth  that  the  moral  laws  are 
likewise  laws  of  nature,  in  the  sense  that  a  healthy  and 
happy  life  is  possible  only  where  they  determine  the  will. 
Gizycki  calls  this  fact,  which  he  recognizes  as  such,^  a 
simple  and  self-evident  fact,  almost  a  tautologous  truth.  I 
regard  it  as  a  very  suggestive  truth:  if  the  moral  law  is  a 
biological  law,  then  "  unfeeling,  involuntary  nature "  is 
brought  into  a  very  remarkable  relation  with  mental-histor- 
ical life. 

It  has  always  seemed  strange  to  me  that  the  thinkers  who 
so  solemnly  declare  that  human  life  is  merely  a  piece  of 
universal  nature,  do  not  see  the  necessary  consequence  of 
their  view :  namely,  that  the  historical  life  of  humanity  may 
in  turn  be  used  in  interpreting  the  nature  which  produces  it. 
For,  on  their  hypothesis,  the  logical  and  moral  laws  also  form 
a  part  of  the  universal  order  of  nature,  and  the  materialist, 
too,  will  have  to  regard  them  as  such.  He  explains  thought 
and  conscience  by  the  mechanics  of  the  brain,  that  is,  he 
assumes  the  possibility  of  such  an  explanation;  hence  the 
mechanism  functions,  at  least  in  part,  as  a  logical  and  moral 
machine.     Is  n't  that  surprising  ? 

How  would  the  nature  of  things  have  to  be  constituted  in 
order  to  impress  the  "  philosophers  of  reality  "  as  remarkable  ? 
If  immediately  after  each  bad  deed,  the  sinner  were  to  receive 
from  an  invisible  power  a  series  of  painful  electrical  shocks, 
corresponding  to  the  degree  of  his  guilt ;  and  if  every  good 
deed  were,  in  the  same  way,  immediately  followed  by  its  re- 
ward, then  would  they  regard  the  phenomenon  as  strange  and 
significant?    Well,  such  an  arrangement  might  seem  suffi- 

1  Moral  Philosophy f  §§  H  f. 
29 


450 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


ciently  obvious  to  a  childish  intellect ;  the  primitive  mind  has 
always  imagined  that  every  misdeed  is  followed  by  a  misfor- 
tune, as  a  punishment,  not  of  nature,  but  of  the  supernatural 
power  of  the  fetiches  or  the  gods.  The  thinking  man,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  find  it  difficult  to  become  reconciled  to  such 
a  demoniacal,  spectral  arrangement ;  he  will  regard  a  natural 
and  uniform  relation  between  reality  and  the  good  as  more 
appropriate.  Well,  such  a  relation  actually  exists  in  the 
world ;  that  which  the  moral  instinct  of  man  has  from  time 
immemorial  designated  as  the  good  or  the  bad,  is  found  to  be 
uniformly  conducive  to  preservation  and  happiness,  or,  con- 
versely, to  cause  destruction,  pain,  and  discord.  Besides,  it 
has  not  escaped  healthy  common-sense  that  God's  justice 
does  not  assume  the  form  of  demoniacal  intervention :  The 
mills  of  the  gods  grind  slowly,  but  they  grind  exceeding  fine. 

Is  the  relation  here  spoken  of  self-evident  ?    Is  the  pro- 
position that  virtue  preserves  life,  that  vice  destroys   it,  a 
tautologous    proposition,  equivalent  to  the    statement  that 
preservative  qualities  preserve  life,  and  destructive  qualities 
destroy  it?  — We  cannot  compel  any  one  to  meditate  upon 
these  matters.     But  I  believe  there  will  always  be  men  who 
will  ponder  over  things  more  than  the  "  philosophy  of  reality  " 
may  be  pleased  to  regard  as  good.    Nay,  I  am  inclined  to  be- 
lieve  that  philosophy  will,  in  the  course  of  its  development, 
come  to  view  this  connection  between  morality  and  life  as  the 
most  remarkable  and  significant  fact  of  all,  from  which  all 
attempts  to  explain  the  essence  of  reality  must  take  their  be- 
ginning.    Of  course,  it  will  never  be  possible  to  give  a  com- 
plete theoretical  explanation  of  the  world  with  this  as  our 
starting-point.     We  are  simply  afforded  a  glimpse  into  the 
ultimate  connections  of  things.     And  so  the  ultimate  relation 
to  reality  will  always  remain  for  us  a  belief,  not  an  intuition. 
I  certainly  prize  intellectual  honesty  very  highly ;  but  I 
cannot  convince  myself  that  it  compels  me  to  say  that  faith 
and  religion  are  always  a  mistake  in  man,  either  of  the  head 


THE   RELATION  OF   MORALITY   TO   RELIGION      451 

or  of  the  heart ;  that  he  is  either  incapable  or  unwilling  to 
see  things  as  they  are.  This  view  held  by  many  "  philoso- 
phers of  reality"  is,  however,  not  Gizycki's:  he  regards  re- 
ligion as  something  wholly  indifferent  and  accidental.  I,  on 
the  other  hand,  believe  religion  belongs  to  the  normal  func- 
tions of  human  nature,  and  that  its  absence  always  indicates 
a  disturbance,  either  in  the  individual  life  or  in  the  life  of 
society. 


^' ;  I 


THE   FREEDOM  OF   THE   WILL 


453 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WHiL* 

1.  We  now  enter  upon  the  discussion  of  a  problem  which 
likewise  borders  on  ethics  and  metaphysics :  the  problem  of 

free  will. 

Let  me  discriminate,  at  the  outset,  between  two  senses  of 
the  word :  we  may  speak  of  freedom  of  the  will  in  a  psycho- 
logical or  in  a  metaphysical  sense.  The  former  means  the 
ability  to  cause  decisions  and  acts  by  one's  own  will 
{freedom  of  choice^  ;  the  latter  means  that  the  will  or  the 
particular  decisions  themselves  have  no  cause. 

In  popular  speech,  the  term  free  will  is  employed  solely  in  the 
first  sense.    An  act  is  called  free  when  the  will  of  the  agent 

1  [For  the  psychology  of  willing,  see :  Wundt,  Phyaiologische  Psychologie,  chaps. 

XV.,  XX.,  XXI ,  XXIL  ;  HofCding,  Psychology,  VH.  ;  Baldwin,  Feeling  and  Will, 

Part' IV.;'  Mental  Development,  chap.  XIII.;  James,  Psychology,  chap.  XXVL; 

Sully,  Human  Mind,  vol.  II.,  Part  V. ;  Ladd,  Descriptive  Psychology,  chaps.  XI., 

XXVI. ;  Jodl,  Lehrbuch,  chaps.  VII.,  XII. ;  Kiilpe,  Die  Lehre  vom  Willen  in  der 

neuern  Psychologie,  Phil.  Studien,  V.  —  Riehl,  Der  philosophische  Kriticismus,  vol.  H., 

Part  II.,  pp.  216-280;  Sidgwick,  Methods,  Bk.  L,  chap.  V.;  Baumann,  WundVs 

Lehre  vom  Willen,  Phil.  Monatshefie,  vol.  XVH.,  pp.  558-602 ;  XIX.,  354-374 ; 

James,  The  Dilemma  of  Determinism,  Unitarian  Review,  September,  1884,  also  in 

his  The  Will  to  Believe;  Martineau,  Study  of  Religion,  vol  IL,  Book  IIL,  pp.  196- 

324;  Green,  Prolegomena,  Bk.  I.,  chap.  IH.;   Bk.  IL,  chap.  I.;  Stephen,  The 

Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  264-294;  Munsterberg,  Die   Willenshandlung ,-  FouilMe,  La 

liberty  et  determinisme ;  Le  sentiment  de  Veffort,  Revue  Phil,  1890;  Sigwart,  Der 

Begriffdes    Wollens  und  sein  Verhaltniss  zum  Begrif  der  Causalitat;  Steinthal, 

Allgemeine  Ethik,  pp.  312-382;  Wundt,  Ethik,  Part  IIL,  chap.  L,  1,  2,  3;  Frank 

ThiUy,  Freedom  of  the    Will  Phil.   Review,  vol.  IIL,  pp.  385-411  ;  Fowler  and 

Wilson.    Principles,    Part    IL,    chap.  IX. ;   Hyslop,  Elements,  chaps.   IV.,  V. ; 

Mackenzie,  Manual,    chap.  VIIL ;    Seth,    Ethical  PnncipUs,  Part  IIL,  chap. 

L  — Tr.] 


is  its  immediate  cause  ;  determined,  when  it  is  caused  by  an 
external  force,  that  is,  either  directly,  by  physical  compul- 
sion, or  indirectly,  by  threats,  misrepresentations,  etc.  In  the 
latter  case,  the  will  is  really  not  the  cause  of  the  decision ; 
but  here  there  is  a  wide  range  between  gentle  persuasion  and 
irresistible  compulsion,  and  therefore  a  corresponding  grad- 
ual transition  from  complete  freedom  to  complete  deter- 
minism. A  person  remains  in  a  room  because  his  business 
keeps  him  there,  or  because  he  feels  no  inclination  to  leave, 
or  because  he  has  been  promised  something  to  stay,  or  because 
he  will  be  punished  if  he  leaves,  or  because  a  sentry  is  posted 
at  the  door  who  will  shoot  him  if  he  goes  out,  or  because  the 
door  is  barred  and  he  himself  is  bound  hand  and  foot.  Here 
we  have  a  graduated  scale  from  perfect  freedom  to  absolute 

compulsion. 

That  there  is  psychological  freedom  has  never  been  doubted. 
But  whether  the  will  can  be  free  in  the  other  sense  is  a 
subject  of  endless  debate.  It  is  contended  by  the  defenders  of 
metaphysical  freedom  that  the  will  itself  is  not  determined  by 
causes,  but  is  the  final  uncaused  cause  of  its  decisions,  that 
it  is  absolutely  independent  of  the  world-process,  which  is 
subject  to  the  causal  law.  Here  again  there  are  two  possibil- 
ities. We  may,  first,  assume  that  the  will  of  a  man  is  an 
agens  ;  which  though  itself  uncaused  and  standing  outside  of 
the  causal  nexus,  nevertheless  acts  according  to  immanent 
law,  in  the  sense  that  its  effects  follow  from  its  nature.  So 
Schopenhauer :  ^  operari  sequitur  esse ;  but  the  esse,  the  will 
itself,  has  no  cause,  or  is,  so  to  say,  its  own  cause  (causa 
sui).  Or,  secondly,  we  may  assume  that  the  particular  acts 
of  will  are  uncaused  as  such,  that  each  enters  the  world  as  an 
absolutely  new  element,  in  no  wise  determined  by  the  previous 
course  of  outer  and  inner  events.    On  the  latter  hypothesis, 

1  [Die  Freiheit  des  Willens.  See  R.  Penzig,  Arthur  Schopenhauer  und  die 
menschliche  Willensfreiheit,  which  contains  also  a  brief  historical  review  of  the  free- 
will question.  —  Tr.] 


454 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


455 


the  will  would  be,  if  we  could  still  speak  of  a  will  here,  an 
absolutely  lawless  agens} 

The  problem  of  the  metaphysical  freedom  of  the  will  is 
still  regarded  by  some  as  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  difficult 
problems  of  philosophy.  I  do  not  regard  it  as  such.  It  is  a 
problem  that  owes  its  origin  to  certain  conditions,  and  will 
disappear  with  these  conditions :  it  belongs  to  philosophizing 
theology,  or  scholasticism. 

The  problem  did  not  really  exist  for  Greek  philosophy; 
only  occasionally  was  it  touched  upon ;  man  was  impartially 
conceived  as  a  part  of  the  whole  of  nature,  from  which  he 
sprang,  and  to  whose  universal  law — so  far  as  Greek  phil- 
osophy was  familiar  with  this  notion  —  he  remained  subject* 

The  philosophy  of  the  church,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
grew  out  of  the  dogmas,  considered  it  a  problem  of  great 

difficulty.^ 

Two  things  are  settled  :  God  created  man  by  an  act  of  his 
will,  hence  man  must  have  been  good  originally.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  no  less  certain  that  man,  as  we  know  him, 
is  by  nature  bad.  This  second  fact  is  the  presupposition  of 
the  fundamental  dogma  of  salvation,  which,  again,  assumes 
the  necessity  of  the  church.  But  how  did  evil  come  into  the 
world?  Through  God, the  Creator  ?  That  is  impossible.  God 
is  good  and  almighty,  and  hence  his  works  as  such  are  neces- 
sarily good.  Evil  then  must  have  come  into  the  world  after 
he  created  it.  Not  from  the  outside,  for  outside  of  God  and 
the  world  there  is  nothing;  hence  through  the  creatures 
themselves.  But  how  can  a  creature  become  other  than  it 
is,  other  than  the  Creator  made  it  ?  Here  the  metaphysical 
freedom  of  the  will  presents  itself  as  a  solution.  God  has 
given  man  a  free  will  in  order  that  he  may  of  his  own  accord 
decide  in  favor  of  the  good ;  without  free  choice  there  can  be 

1  [See  Martineau,  supra \  Dr.  Ward,  Dublin  Review,  July,  1874.— Tr.] 

2  [See  Aristotle,  Nicomachean  Ethics,  Book  III.  —  Tr] 

8  [Cf.   Augustine  and  the    Pelagian  controversy,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Duns 
Scotus,  Luther,  Calvin.— Tb. J 


no  morality.  But  freedom  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  the  cap- 
acity to  turn  to  either  side.  Now  man  made  use  of  his  free- 
dom by  deciding  in  favor  of  the  evil:  Adam  sinned  by  his 
disobedience,  and  with  him  fell  the  entire  race.  Hence  evil 
came  into  the  world,  not  through  God,  but  through  man, 
although  with  God's  sanction. 

Whether  this  solution  removes  the  difficulty  need  not  be 
decided  here.  The  question  might  be  asked :  Can  a  creator 
really  give  such  freedom  to  a  creature,  that  is,  the  capacity  to 
will  or  to  do  anything  with  absolute  independence  ?  Will  not 
every  act  and  every  decision  follow  necessarily  from  the 
nature  of  the  creature?  And  then  is  not  the  cause  of  its 
nature  also  the  cause  of  all  its  actions?  But  if  the  reply 
should  be  given  that  the  decision  does  not  follow  as  a  con- 
sequence from  the  nature  of  the  creature,  then  indeed  we 
have  absolute  fatalism.—  Besides,  purely  theological  objections 
may  still  be  urged  against  such  a  solution,  for  example,  ob- 
jections based  upon  the  omnipotence  and  omniscience  of  God, 
or  upon  the  necessity  of  God's  grace  and  man's  natural  in- 
capacity for  good.  Calvin  and  Luther  deny  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  the  former  in  his  doctrine  of  predestination,  whose 
logical  consistency  we  are  forced  to  admit,  the  latter  in  his 
teaching  of  the  incapacity  or  "  unfreedom  "  of  the  natural  man 
to  choose  the  good.  The  entire  subject  is,  therefore,  in  the 
words  of  Ovid,  instahilis  tellus,  inabilis  unda. 

Modern  philosophy,  which  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  new 
natural  sciences,  has  not,  it  is  true,  solved  the  problem; 
it  has  simply  dropped  it.  The  conception  of  the  unity 
and  uniformity  of  nature  is  one  of  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  the  modern  era,  one  that  took  root  immediately 
after  it  was  first  enunciated  by  the  great  thinkers  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  And  our  interpretation  of  psychical 
processes  has  also  been  gradually  determined  by  this  concep- 
tion as  the  regulative  principle.  Hobbes  regards  the  mental 
processes  themselves  as  motion ;  hence  metaphysical  freedom 


III 


'!1 


i 


456 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


of  the  will  is  as  impossible  as  the  creation  of  motion  or 
matter  out  of  nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  freedom  in  the 
psychological  sense  is  a  self-evident  fact.  He  sums  up  his 
view  in  an  epigrammatic  formula,  which  may  indeed  be  termed 
the  last  word  in  this  controversy  :  Lihertas  non  est  volendi^ 
aed  quae  volumus  faciendi ;  we  have  the  will  to  act,  and  this 
we  call  freedom,  but  not  the  will  to  will.  Spinoza,  whose 
system  leaves  absolutely  no  room  for  isolated  or  exempt  ele- 
ments of  reality,  speaks  of  the  soul  as  a  spiritual  automaton 
(automaton  spirituale^,  Leibniz  and  Wolff  vainly  endeavor 
to  purge  themselves  of  the  charge  of  determinism  by  distin- 
guishing between  physical  and  mathematical  necessity.  Kant 
and  Schopenhauer,  to  be  sure,  speak  of  an  "  intelligible  "  free- 
dom ;  but  in  the  empirical  world,  which  all  human  beings  call 
the  real  world,  the  law  of  causality  rules.  The  occurrences 
of  the  psychical  world  take  place  according  to  the  natural 
laws  governing  it,  with  the  same  necessity  as  those  in  the 
physical  world.^  It  is  merely  accidental,  that  is,  owing  to 
their  great  complexity,  that  they  cannot  be  calculated  or 
foretold,  which,  however,  likewise  holds  true  of  many  pro- 
cesses in  the  physical  world ;  for  example,  of  meteorological 
and  physiological  occurrences.  Theoretically,  nothing  stands 
in  the  way ;  a  perfect  intellect,  capable  of  t^^king  into  account 
all  the  necessary  facts,  would  understand  the  acts  of  a  man  as 
perfectly  as  the  movements  of  the  planets.  The  physiologists 
of  our  times  are  still  further  influenced  in  their  acceptance  of 
the  causal  dependence  of  all  mental  processes,  by  the  prevail- 
ing view  that  the  psychical  processes  must  be  conceived  as 
concomitant  phenomena  of  physiological  processes  in  the  brain 
and  nervous  system.  If  now  the  law  of  causality  is  absolutely 
valid  for  the  latter  as  physical  processes,  it  must  also  be  as- 
sumed to  apply  to  the  concomitant  mental  processes.  If  the 
proposition  is  true  that  organic  bodies  which  are  absolutely 
identical  will  respond  to  the  same  stimuli  in  exactly  the  same 

1  [See  also  Green,  supra. —  Tr.] 


11^ 


* 


^ 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


457 


manner,  then  the  proposition  also  holds  that  souls  exactly 
alike  in  nature  and  character,  inclinations  and  moods,  expe- 
riences and  ideas,  will  respond  to  the  same  stimuli  in  the 
same  way.  And  similarly :  If  the  law  of  causality  applies  to 
transmission  of  bodily  characteristics,  it  will  apply  no  less  to 
the  psychical  predispositions  which  depend  upon  the  former. 

2.  Whatever  view  we  may  take  of  these  ultimate  specula- 
tions, the  facts  will  hardly  allow  us  to  doubt  the  causal 
determination  of  the  nature  and  development  of  the  will,  and 
hence  of  action.  Indeed,  no  one  really  doubts  it,  no  one 
believes  that  the  human  will  is  an  ens  a  se,  or  that,  a  certain 
nature  and  certain  conditions  being  given,  a  certain  stimulus 
will  sometimes  produce  one  act,  and  sometimes  another. 

Let  me  indicate  the  facts,  which  force  themselves  upon  our 
attention. 

How  does  a  man,  a  human  will,  come  into  the  world  ?  So 
far  as  we  know,  his  life  begins  in  time.  Is  the  beginning 
without  cause,  or  is  it  the  result  of  his  own  choice  ?  Hardly ; 
man,  like  the  animal,  is  conceived  and  produced  by  parents ; 
he  resembles  them  in  body  and  in  soul,  he  inherits  their  temper- 
ament, their  desires,  their  sensuous-intellectual  powers,  as  well 
as  their  bodily  characteristics.  He  receives  all  the  physical- 
spiritual  qualities  of  the  people  from  whom  he  descends,  as 
his  natural  endowment.  His  sex,  too,  which  exercises  such 
a  potent  influence  upon  his  entire  life,  is  determined,  by  what 
causes  we  do  not  know,  yet  no  one  will  claim  that  it  is  the 
result  of  his  own  choice.  Hence  nothing  in  the  origin  of  man 
indicates  that  he  constitutes  an  exempt  territory,  an  enclave 
in  the  kingdom  of  nature,  which  is  not  subject  to  her  laws. 

These  predispositions  or  tendencies  are  then  developed 
under  the  determining  influences  of  environment,  of  natural 
and,  above  all,  human  environment.  The  child  is  educated 
by  the  family  in  the  form  of  life  peculiar  to  his  people.  He 
acquires  their  language,  and  with  the  language  a  more  or  less 
complete  system  of  concepts  and  judgments.     He  is  educated 


458 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE   FREEDOM  OF   THE   WILL 


459 


f  ■* 


in 


'i 


ti 


into  the  customs  and  habits  of  his  nation,  by  which  the  actions 
and  judgments  of  most  persons  are  governed   during  their 
entire  lives.     He  is  sent  to  school,  and  here  obtains  the  gen- 
eral culture  of  the  age ;  he  is  taken  into  the  church,  where 
he  receives  further  training,  which,  positively  or  negatively, 
exercises  a  permanent  influence  upon  bis  inner  life.     He  is 
finally  dismissed  from  the  home  and  the  school,  but  only  to 
be  subjected  to  the  influence  of  a  new  educative  force,— 
society.     The  individual  is  also  born  into  society;  there  is, 
as  a  rule,  little  room  for  choice ;  he  belongs  to  a  certain  class 
by  descent  and,  as  a  rule,  for  life.     Society  incessantly  works 
upon  him ;  it  tells  him  in  words  and  in  deeds  what  is  right 
and  what  is  wrong,  what  is  proper  and  improper,  what  is  at- 
tractive and  repulsive.     It  assigns  to  him  his  tasks  according 
to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.     Each  man  receives  his 
instructions  from  his  times.    The  builder  does  not  build  as 
he  chooses,  but  as  the  age  chooses:  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, in  the  Gothic  style ;  in  the  sixteenth.  Renaissance ;  in 
the  eighteenth.  Rococo.     Nor  does  the  scholar  choose  his 
scientific  task,  his  age  selects  it  for  him :  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  a  logical  disquisition  on  substance  and  accident ;  in 
the  sixteenth,  Latin  verses,  modelled   after  Virgil;   in  the 
eighteenth,  a  mathematical-physical  investigation,  or  a  treat- 
ise on  the  harmfulness  of  superstition.    In  our  days  he  makes 
an  historical  examination  of  a  lost  Greek  writer  or  digs  up 
prehistoric  ruins. 

There  seems  to  be  no  break  in  the  chain :  nation  and  age, 
parents  and  teachers,  environment  and  society,  determine 
the  predisposition  and  development,  rank  and  life-problems,  of 
each  individual  human  being.  He  is  the  product  of  the  col- 
lective body  from  which  he  springs.  Just  as  the  twig  on  a 
tree  does  not  owe  its  form  and  function  to  its  will,  but  to  the 
whole  body  on  which  it  grows,  so  a  man  does  not  exist  prior 
to  himself,  as  it  were,  and  determine  his  form  and  lot  in  life 
by  the  decision  of  his  will.     He  comes  into  the  world  and 


acts  in  the  world  as  the  member  of  a  collective  body.  And 
as  a  part  of  this  people  his  life  forms  a  part  of  the  total 
historical  life  of  humanity,  and,  finally,  of  universal  nature. 

But,  it  is  said,  self-consciousness  knows  nothing  of  such  ne- 
cessity. Every  one  has  an  immediate  feeling  of  certainty  that 
he  is  not  moulded  into  what  he  is  from  without,  that  every- 
thing would  have  happened  otherwise  if  he  had  willed  other- 
wise.^ And  he  is  likewise  absolutely  sure  that  the  future 
shaping  of  his  life  depends  upon  his  will :  I  could  give  up  my 
business  right  now  and  start  another  one ;  I  could  emigrate 
to  St.  Petersburg  or  to  London  or  to  America,  —  all  this  lies 
wholly  in  my  power ;  and  such  a  course  would  evidently  com- 
pletely change  my  life.  I  could  also,  and  perhaps  ought  to, 
says  self-consciousness,  alter  my  mode  of  life,  my  behavior 
to  others,  my  character.    Is  all  this  an  illusion  ? 

Certainly  not.  Self-consciousness  does  not  deceive  us.  But 
what  does  it  say  ?  Surely  this,  that  to  the  influences  which 
have  determined  and  will  continue  to  determine  my  life  and 
character,  must  be  added  my  wishes  and  inclinations,  my  con- 
victions and  resolutions,  and  particularly  these.  It  tells  me 
that  I  am  not  moved  from  without  like  a  cogwheel  in  a 
machine,  but  through  the  mediation  of  an  inner  element 
which  I  call  my  will.  The  organic  differs  from  the  inorganic 
in  that  the  former  is  not  determined  by  external,  mechanical 
effects,  but  by  the  action  of  an  inner  principle :  a  statue  is 
fashioned  by  chiselling  or  moulding,  an  organism  may  be  de- 
stroyed, but  it  cannot  be  formed,  by  mechanical  influences. 
Similarly,  man  is  not  moulded  mechanically  by  things  and 
men,  but  the  outer  as  well  as  the  inner  man  is  formed  by 
the  reaction  of  an  inner  principle  upon  extraneous  influences, 
by  which  process  his  nature  is  gradually  developed.     That  is 

*  [Sidgwick,  Methods,  p.  67 :  "I  hold,  therefore,  that  against  the  formidable 
array  of  cumulative  evidence  offered  for  Determinism,  there  is  but  one  argument 
of  real  force :  the  immediate  affirmation  of  consciousness  in  the  moment  of 
deliberate  action."  —  Tb.1 


W 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WH^L 


461 


It  ( . 


I<'  '  .i 


III 


ill! 


460 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


what  self-consciousness  says ;  never,  however,  does  it  tell  us 
that  the  particular  processes  arise  without  cause,  that  at  any 
moment  of  life  any  occurrence  whatever  can  take  place,  utterly 
regardless  of  all  preceding  ones  ;  this  would,  if  it  really  hap- 
pened, be  equivalent  to  the  complete  resolution  of  life  mto  a 
series  of  disconnected  and  irrational  accidents.  Nor  does  it 
say  that  this  inner  principle,  the  character,  the  ego,  or  what- 
ever we  may  choose  to  call  it,  is  itself  absolutely  uncaused, 
that  it  enters  the  world  as  an  absolutely  isolated  element.  In 
no  sense  does  it  contradict  the  view  that  the  ego,  like  the 
organized  body,  is  the  product  of  evolution ;  that  it  and  its 
entire  nature  originally  sprang  from  something  else  ;  that  it 
is  exceedingly  plastic  during  the  earlier  period  of  its  develop- 
ment, but  gradually  becomes  more  capable  of  resistance,  and 
acquires  the  ability  to  change  its  relations  to  its  surround- 
ings, and  thus  indirectly  its  own  form,  through  its  own 

decisions.^ 

3.  But  in  that  case  what  becomes  of  responsibility  ?  Then 
each  man  is  ultimately  what  God  or  Nature  made  him,  and 
God  or  Nature  is  to  blame  if  he  does  not  turn  out  well.  He 
himself  cannot  help  it ;  if  he  did  not  choose  his  original  en- 
dowments, nor  his  character,  nor  his  parents,  nor  his  society, 
he  could  not,  being  what  he  was  under,  those  particular  con- 

1  One  of  the  reasons  why  it  is  so  hard  to  bring  about  a  reconciliation  between 
determinism  and  indeterminisra  is  above  aU  a  false  conception  of  the  nature  of 
causality.    It  is  customary  to  conceive  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect 
according  to  the  notion  of  mechanical  impact,  and  hence  to  regard  necessity  or 
compulsion  as  an  essential  element  in  it,  a  view  which  makes  it  impossible  to 
apply  the  causal  notion  to  the  processes  of  psychical  life.    A  more  penetrating 
analysis  of  the  relation,  as  we  find  it  in  thinkers  like  Leibniz,  Hume,  and  Lotze, 
shows  that  both  compulsion  and  necessity  are  out  of  the  question:  the  causal 
law  says  that  there  is  a  spontaneous  concomitance  of  all  elements,  Leibniz's  con- 
comitance universelle,  not  that  each  element  is  coerced  or  compelled  by  every 
other  element.     From  this  standpoint,  causality  is  compatible  with  teleology ;  the 
universal  concomitance  points  to  an  original  unity  of  plurality,  at  first  in  a  sub 
stance,  and  ultimately  in  a  unified  reason.     I  can  merely  suggest  these  thoughts 
here.    The  reader  will  find  a  more  elaborate  treatment  of  them  in  my  Tntroduc 
Hon  to  Philosophy,  pp.  212  £E.     [Eng.  translation,  pp.  218  ff.  —  Tr.] 


ditions,  have  helped  becoming  what  he  now  is.  How  can  we 
blame  him,  how  can  we  punish  him  for  something  which  he 
really  did  not  do,  but  suffered  ? 

We  reply :  There  is  some  ground  for  the  first  part  of  this 
conclusion,  but  none  for  the  second.  It  is  true,  God  or 
Nature  cannot  shirk  the  responsibility  for  their  creations, 
if  they  cannot  deny  their  authorship.  We  should  despise 
a  family  as  bad  and  worthless  that  had  produced  nothing 
but  degenerate  individuals  for  a  number  of  generations ;  we 
should  hate  and  detest  a  nation  that  brought  forth  nothing 
but  repulsive  and  base  characters.  If  the  world  produced 
nothing  but  ugly  and  deformed  creatures,  we  should  un- 
doubtedly say  it  was  worth  nothing,  and  if  we  assumed  the 
existence  of  a  Cause,  we  should  feel  as  little  admiration 
for  Him  as  for  His  work.  If  a  good  and  beautiful  human 
life  is  a  credit  to  God,  a  worthless  and  disgraceful  life  is 
doubtless  to  His  discredit.  It  is  utterly  incomprehensible 
how  one  conclusion  can  be  drawn  without  the  other.  We 
cannot  justify  God  for  the  evil  in  the  world  by  saying  that 
the  human  will  is  its  absolute  and  ultimate  cause,  but  only 
in  the  manner  indicated  above,^  that  is,  by  showing  that 
evil,  even  though  it  remains  evil,  is  in  a  certain  measure 
necessary  to  the  good,  because  the  latter  cannot  exist  and 
manifest  itself  without  the  former. 

Hence,  to  refer  evil  to  causes  means  to  shift  the  respon- 
sibility upon  these  causes.  But,  it  must  be  added,  this  does 
not  alter  our  feelings,  our  judgment,  and  our  attitude  towards 
the  worthless  and  evil  individual.  To  be  sure,  we  should 
say,  nothing  good  can  come  from  such  a  source ;  but  this 
would  not  mean  that  the  product,  base  though  it  may  be, 
was  pure  and  guiltless,  and  that  we  should  treat  it  as  such. 
Our  judgment  of  the  worth  of  a  person  depends  upon  what 
he  is,  not  upon  how  he  became  so,  and  our  attitude  towards 
him  depends  on  the  same  thing.    "  Every  tree  which  bringeth 

1  Pp.  325  n. 


462 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


463 


111  5 


I'  ' 


iilr 


not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into  the  fire." 
We  know  very  well  that  it  cannot  help  its  badness,  that  it  has 
not  chosen  its  own  existence  and  nature,  but  that  does  not  pre- 
vent us  from  saying :  "  Cut  it  down,  why  cumbereth  it  the 
ground  ?  "  So,  too,  we  kill  a  ferocious  and  dangerous  domes- 
tic animal  without  supposing  that  it  has  voluntarily  chosen 
its  evil  nature;  its  nature  is  evil,  and  that  settles  it.  One 
thing  alone  could  induce  us  to  modify  our  behavior.  Should 
we  become  convinced  that  the  displeasing  quality  was  due  not 
so  much  to  an  original  endowment  as  to  unfavorable  condi- 
tions of  development,  should  we  find,  for  example,  that  the 
tree  was  planted  in  poor  soil,  that  the  animal  was  in  the 
hands  of  brutal  men,  then  we  should  deliberate  and  perhaps 
attempt  to  remove  the  unfavorable  influences,  and  remedy  the 
defect  by  changing  the  external  conditions  of  life.  In  case, 
however,  the  original  endowment  itself  is  bad,  our  repudia- 
tion of  the  form  is  final. 

We  assume  practically  the  same  attitude  towards  human 
beings.  It  is  no  excuse  for  a  worthless  and  degenerate  fellow 
to  appeal  to  the  fact  that  he  comes  from  a  family  that  has 
been  profligate  for  generations.  Nay,  this  will  hardly  justify 
him  in  his  own  eyes.  If  a  man  should  say  to  himself:  I  am 
by  nature,  by  descent,  a  wicked  knave,  endowed  with  all 
kinds  of  perverse  instincts  and  moral  defects,  it  would  not 
alter  the  fact  that  he  possesses  the  feelings  which  go  with 
wickedness  and  degeneracy.  It  would,  however,  excuse  him 
in  his  own  eyes  and  before  others,  if  he  could  say:  I  am 
not  naturally  a  bad  man,  I  really  do  not  belong  to  the  set  in 
which  you  find  me.  I  owe  my  downfall  to  certain  circum- 
stances—  of  course,  I  am  not  altogether  free  from  blame  — 
but  I  am  a  human  being,  my  will  is  not  absolutely  proof 
against  temptation;  I  was  overtaken  by  want,  without  any 
fault  of  my  own ;  I  have  been  treated  outrageously  by  men ; 
I  fell  into  bad  company  without  knowing  it.  In  case  we 
believe  him,  our  feelings  change,  anger  gives   way  to  pity, 


we  endeavor  to  bring  the  unfortunate  individual  into  more 
favorable  surroundings,  so  that  his  better  nature  may  find 
an  opportunity  to  assert  itself. 

Hence,  we  find  here  a  double  responsibility :  First,  we  hold 
the  individual  himself  accountable ;  then  the  collective  bodies 
which  moulded  him,  his  family,  his  social  class,  his  nation, 
humanity  at  large ;  and  finally  the  All-Real  itself.  This  is 
what  actually  happens  everywhere:  we  invariably  judge  of 
the  value  of  collective  bodies  by  the  goodness  and  badness  of 
the  individuals  belonging  to  them.  But  this  does  not  make 
unnecessary  our  evaluation  of  the  individual ;  on  the  contrary, 
the  latter  remains  the  essential  precondition  of  the  wider 
judgment.  The  individual  is  the  point  from  which  our  feel- 
ing and  judgment  extends  to  the  whole,  of  which  he  forms 
a  part. 

I  have  always  wondered  why  in  our  anxiety  to  save  respon- 
sibility we  invariably  think  of  accountability  for  evil.  Why 
are  we  not  equally  concerned  about  the  responsibility  for 
good  ?  Is  it  because  we  plainly  recognize  that  our  judgments 
of  value  are  independent  of  the  question  of  origin  in  the 
latter  case  ?  We  do  not  allow  our  enjoyment  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  good  to  be  the  least  disturbed  by  the  knowledge 
of  how  they  became  what  they  are.  Or  is  it  because  the  im- 
pulse to  reward  is  not  so  strong  in  us  as  the  impulse  to 
revenge  ourselves  and  to  punish  ? 

What  is  true  of  moral  accountability  is  likewise  true  of 
legal  responsibility,  which  rests  upon  the  former.  Practical 
jurisprudence  has  never  doubted  that  freedom  of  choice  alone, 
and  not  metaphysical  freedom,  decides  the  question  of  respon- 
sibility. It  has  never  been  considered  necessary  to  inquire 
whether  the  criminal  owed  his  evil  tendencies  to  heredity  and 
education,  or  whether  he  created  them  by  an  absolute  act  of 
the  will.  Only  occasionally  have  theorists,  by  constantly 
brooding  over  the  problem  of  metaphysical  freedom,  or  by 
gazing  blankly  at  the  figures  furnished  by  statistics,  become 


464 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


465 


entangled  in  all  kinds  of  curious  perplexities  and  doubts :  as 
to  whether  society  has  the  right  to  punish,  or  whether  it 
is  not  itself  the  guilty  and  responsible  party.  The  same 
relative  number  of  crimes,  it  is  held,  recur  annually  with 
the  regularity  of  natural  events,  —  perjury,  murder,  and 
crimes  against  morals ;  a  kind  of  necessity  seems  to  prevail, 
particular  criminals  being  selected  as  the  victims  to  complete 
the  criminal  budget  of  society.^ 

We  may  reply  to  this  :  It  is  quite  true ;  society  is  guilty 
and  therefore  liable  to  punishment,  it  produces  individuals 
with  criminal  tendencies,  it  also  creates  temptation  and 
opportunities  for  crime.  But  is  society  not  punished? 
Is  not,  in  the  first  place,  the  crime  itself  a  punishment  which 
it  suffers  ?  The  person  against  whom  the  offence  is  com- 
mitted is  as  much  a  part  of  society  as  the  criminal.  And  the 
feeling  of  fear  and  insecurity  caused  by  the  crime  is  a  further 
punishment.  And  the  punishment  itself,  which  is  inflicted 
upon  the  criminal,  is  an  additional  punishment:  when  he 
suffers,  a  member  of  society  suffers,  the  member  namely, 
through  whom  it  has  sinned.  And  finally,  society  as  a  whole 
suffers  the  punishment  which  it  inflicts ;  for  is  it  not  a  pun- 
ishment for  a  nation  to  watch,  to  support,  to  clothe,  and  to 
employ  many  thousands  in  penitentiaries  and  prisons  at 
enormous  expense?  Ought  society  to  be  punished  in  other 
ways?  Shall  all  the  others,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the 
criminal  as  the  only  innocent  party,  be  punished  ?  Or  what 
do  these  wonderful  people  mean  ? 

We  should  further  have  to  add  that  from  the  standpoint 
of  collective  life  punishment  is  to  be  considered  as  a  remedy 
against  certain  ills  of  society,  a  painful  remedy  which  society 
prescribes  in  order  to  rid  itself  of  these  ills,  that  is,  the  crimes. 
The  remedy  is,  naturally,  applied  to  the  seat  of  the  disease, 
that  is,  to  the  criminal ;  and  here  we  expect  to  produce  the 

1  [See  Drobisch,  Die  moralische  Statistik  und  die  menschliche  Willensfreiheit, 
1867.— Tr.] 


immediate  effects.  The  criminal,  let  us  say,  is  imprisoned. 
This  teaches  him  that  his  conduct  is  not  appropriate,  even 
for  him.  He  cannot  wish  to  relinquish  his  privilege  to  live 
in  and  with  society ;  the  punishment  reminds  him  that  this 
is  possible  only  under  certain  conditions,  and  that,  in  case 
he  does  not  fulfil  these  conditions,  he  is  hopelessly  at  the 
mercy  of  the  stronger.  At  the  same  time  labor  shows  him 
the  way  to  a  peaceful  and  profitable  life.  So  the  penitentiary 
is,  in  a  sense,  a  hospital  for  the  morally  insane,  in  which,  as 
in  other  hospitals,  there  are  both  curables  and  incurables. 
Society  likewise  protects  itself  against  infection  by  isolating 
and  deterring  its  offenders,  or  at  least  attempts  it,  for  it  is 
not  wholly  successful.  Capital  punishment  is  to  be  regarded 
in  the  same  light :  it  is  the  last  means  of  curing  the  criminal 
of  his  wicked  will ;  what  good  would  it  do  him  to  prolong  his 
life  and  enable  him  to  increase  his  guilt  ?  And  at  the  same 
time  society  protects  itself  against  further  disturbances,  which 
are  bound  to  spread  from  a  hopelessly  incurable  member. 

This  fact  has,  as  we  said  before,  never  been  doubted  in  the 
practical  world.  Accountability  and  legal  responsibility 
merely  presuppose  freedom  in  the  psychological  sense. 
When  the  will  of  a  man  is  expressed  in  his  act,  it  is  his  act, 
and  he  is  responsible  for  it.  The  question  whether  this  will 
itself  was  fashioned  into  what  it  is  by  causes  outside  of  it,  is 
never  broached  by  the  judge.  When,  however,  an  act  does 
not  express  the  real  will  of  the  agent  there  is  no  responsibility. 
Insanity  makes  volition  in  the  real  human  sense,  choice  as  a 
result  of  rational  deliberation,  impossible.  Violent  passion 
may,  under  certain  circumstances,  and  in  a  certain  measure, 
have  the  same  effect,  in  which  case  the  real  will  of  the  entire 
man  does  not  express  itself.  Therefore,  deeds  done  in  the 
heat  of  passion  and  without  reflection  are  excused  before  the 
law ;  not  entirely,  it  is  true,  for  the  inability  to  control  one's 
temper  is  a  defect  of  the  will,  for  which  punishment  is  im- 
posed as  an  effective  remedy.     When,  on  the  other  hand,  the 

30 


ii 


';*  i 


466 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE   FREEDOM  OF   THE   WILL 


467 


It'  ii! 


1* ' 


h  \ 


act  is  accidental  or  unavoidable,  the  agent  is  wholly  exoner- 
ated ;  there  is  no  need  of  a  remedy  when  the  will  has  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do  with  the  deed. 

Some  one,  however,  disturbed  by  such  psycho-physical  spec- 
ulations, might  argue  as  follows :     Well,  after  all,  the  same 
remarks  apply  to  insanity.     If  we  regard  and  treat  this  as  a 
brain-disease,  why  not  do  the   same  with  other  abnormal 
states  ?    The  criminal  impulse  of  the  thief  or  incendiary  must 
be  explained  scientifically,  as  an  inherited  or  acquired  predis- 
position of  the  brain,  and  hence  the  person  thus  afflicted  must 
be  treated  as  diseased.     Our  answer  would  be :  We  can  cer- 
tainly look  at  the  matter  in  this  way ;  the  impulse  to  commit 
arson  is  an  abnormal  tendency  of  the  brain,  likewise  the  im- 
pulse to  steal;  and  of  course,  the  impulse  of  the  boy  who 
wantonly  destroys  his  playthings,  or  of  the  little  girl  who 
annoys  her  parents  and  teachers  by  her   carelessness   and 
fickleness,  all  these,  too,  are  to  be  regarded  as  abnormal  or 
diseased  predispositions  of  the  brain.     But,  now  draw  the  con- 
clusions.    We  attempt  to  cure  diseases  with  the   remedies 
which  experience  has  found  to  be  efficacious.    If  the  physician 
can  heal  the  insane  by  dietaries  and  shower-baths  and  medi- 
cines, very  well ;  and  if  he  can  also  cure  those  afflicted  with  the 
impulse  to  commit  arson  with  the  same  or  similar  remedies, 
very  well ;  we  shall  be  glad  to  place  such  persons  under  his 
care,  as  well  as  the  bad  boy  whose  pranks  annoy  us.     But  in 
case  his  remedies  prove  unsuccessful  here,  let  him  not  hinder 
us  from  trying  other  cures,  especially  such  as  have  stood  the 
test  of  experience ;  for  example,  for  bad  boys  a  natural  remedy 
that  grows  on  the  hedges.     And  in  case  he  cannot  reach  the 
impulse  to  steal  or  the  impulse  to  destroy,  by  the  remedies  of 
the  apothecary,  let  him  allow  us  in  the  meantime  to  continue 
the  use  of  an  old  remedy  which,  though  not  absolutely  sure, 
has  nevertheless  met  with  a  certain  degree  of  success  as  an 
antidote  against  such  impulses ;  that  is,  the  prison  and  the 
penitentiary.     So  soon  as  he  discovers  a  more  certam,  sim- 


pler, less  roundabout  and  expensive  specific,  we  shall  be  glad 
to  dispense  with  these  disagreeable  and  inadequate  cures  of 
ours.  —  But  why  do  you  not  treat  the  maniac  in  the  same  way, 
why  do  you  not  bring  him  before  court,  and  sentence  him  to 
jail  when  he  commits  a  crime  ?  —  We  should  certainly  do  so 
if  we  believed  that  the  treatment  employed  by  judges  and 
prison-guards  would  produce  better  results  in  his  case  than 
that  applied  to  him  and  others  similarly  afflicted,  by  physi- 
cians and  nurses.  In  the  meanwhile,  we  are  of  the  opinion 
that  to  subject  him  to  the  process  of  the  criminal  law  would 
make  no  impression  upon  him,  would  have  no  such  influence 
upon  his  future  behavior  as  the  rod  has  upon  the  boy,  or  the 
penitentiary  has  —  at  least  occasionally  —  upon  the  thief  and 
his  possible  successors.  Besides,  we  certainly  do  place  the 
insane  person  under  restraint  when  he  becomes  dangerous  to 
himself  or  to  others,  and  protect  ourselves  against  him,  so  far 
as  we  can,  as  much  as  against  the  thief. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  very  strange  procedure,  first  to  explain 
criminal  impulses  as  diseases,  and  then  to  conclude  from  this 
that  nothing  ought  to  be  done  against  them.  Against  diseases 
we  employ  all  remedies  that  help,  even  though  they  burn  and 
smart. 

4.   Then  is  there  no  such  thing  as  free  will  ? 

Lest  any  one  may  draw  this  conclusion  from  my  argu- 
ments, I  add  the  following : 

The  expression  freedom  of  the  will  signifies  in  popular 
speech  a  real,  positive  property  of  human  nature.  Animals, 
too,  have  wills,  but  we  do  not  attribute  free  will  to  them. 
Wherein  does  the  difference  consist  ? 

Animals  are  moved  to  action  by  momentary  impulses 
and  perceptions.  An  animal  observes  its  prey,  hears  the 
approach  of  the  foe ;  the  percepts  immediately  produce  ap- 
propriate movements  of  pursuit  or  flight.  Deliberation,  hesi- 
tation, and  choice  exist  only  in  rudimentary  form  among  the 
most  highly  developed  animals. 


'I 


468 


CONCEPTS  AND  PRINCIPLES 


w 


Now  such  processes  are  characteristic  of  man.     He  deter- 
mines his  conduct  by  resolutions.     Resolutions  are  the  result 
of  deliberation;   in  deliberation  several  possible  courses  of 
action  or  modes  of  behavior  are  compared  with  the  ultimate 
aims  of  individual  and  social  life,  and  chosen  accordingly. 
Man,  therefore,  is  not  determined  by  his  impulses,  but  he 
determines  himself  by  ideas  of  ends.     In  his  purposes,  man 
comprehends  his  whole  activity,  his  whole  life,  into  a  unity, 
as  it  were,  and  chooses  the  particular   acts   according  to 
their  relation  to  this  principle.     Animal  life  is  divided  into 
a  plurality  of  isolated,  disconnected  functions  ;  human  life 
is  embraced  into  the  unity  of  an  idea,  and  the  latter  evolves 
the   particular   moments  demanded  by  the   purpose   of  the 
whole.     The  unity   of  practical   self-consciousness,  or  con- 
science,  exercises   a   constant    control    over    the   particular 
processes   of  inner    life,  feelings,   strivings,  acts,   thoughts. 
Well,  this  faculty  of  regulating  and  determining  the  particu- 
lar functions  of  life  by  an  idea  of  one's  life,  is  precisely  what 
we  mean  by  free  will.     Hence  we  may  also  say  that  a  person's 
acts  are  free,  when  he  is  determined  not  by  present  stimuli 
and  the  momentary  desires  aroused  by  them,  but  by  ideas 
of  ends  and  ideals,  by  duty  and  conscience;  in  the  former 
case  he  is  driven  {agitur^^  in  the  latter  alone  he  acts  (agif). 

We  may  accordingly  add  that,  in  '  a  certain  sense,  the 
view  that  the  human  will  is  exempt,  or  forms  a  kind  of  en- 
clave in  nature  is  correct.  The  animal  is  a  point  of  transition 
for  natural  processes ;  it  is  itself  a  part  of  nature,  deter- 
mined from  without  by  constantly  ^approaching  stimuli  and 
influences.  Man,  on  the  other  hand,  in  a  certain  manner, 
emancipates  himself  from  the  course  of  nature;  he  rises 
above  nature  and  opposes  it  as  a  self,  he  determines  it  and 
employs  it,  is  not  determined  by  it :  man  becomes  a  person- 
ality. As  such  he  is  able  to  put  his  whole  self,  his  ego,  into 
every  phase  of  his  life,  and  therefore  he  is  responsible  for 
every  particular  act. 


THE  FREEDOM   OF   THE   WILL 


469 


It  is  apparent  that  freedom  in  this  sense  is  not  an  original 
endowment  of  human  nature,  but  an  acquired  characteristic  ; 
it  has  been  acquired  by  the  entire  race  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory, and  must  be  acquired  anew  by  each  individual.  The 
new-born  child  does  not  bring  with  it  a  ready-made  freedom  ; 
nay,  it  is  driven  like  an  animal  by  momentary  cravings. 
But  gradually  the  rational  will,  supported  by  education, 
rises  above  the  animal  impulses.  This  occurs  in  a  different 
degree  in  different  individuals;  some  are  wholly  controlled 
by  these  impulses  during  their  entire  lives,  others  acquire 
such  a  remarkable  control  over  nature  in  themselves  that 
they  seem  to  regulate  even  the  smallest  details  of  their  lives 
by  rational  deliberation,  and  never  do  anything  or  leave 
anything  undone,  except  by  choice.  It  is  to  be  observed,  in 
this  connection,  that  though  it  is  vulgar  and  base  to  give 
the  impulses  complete  mastery  over  one's  self  QaKoXaaia)^ 
yet  the  complete  suppression  of  them  fills  us  with  fear  and 
awe :  no  one,  as  has  been  said,  is  lovable  without  his  weak- 
nesses. Man  seems  to  be  intended  as  a  mean  between  au 
animal  and  a  purely  rational  being. 

Hence,  can  man  determine  himself  by  his  own  will  ?  Can 
he  fashion  his  will  by  means  of  his  will  ?  —  Yes  and  no.  Yes, 
for  he  undoubtedly  has  the  faculty  of  educating  himself ;  he 
can  fashion  his  outer  and  inner  man,  with  conscious  purpose, 
according  to  his  ideal ;  he  can  discipline  his  natural  impulses, 
nay,  even  suppress  them  so  that  they  will  no  longer  move 
him.  To  be  sure,  he  cannot  do  this  simply  by  wishing  or 
resolving  it ;  he  can  do  it  only  by  constant  practice  and  by 
employing  appropriate  means,  in  the  same  way  that  he  ac- 
quires bodily  skill.  We  cannot  when  awake  immediately  force 
ourselves  to  sleep,  by  an  act  of  the  will ;  but  we  can,  by 
proper  diet  and  work,  exercise  such  an  influence  upon  the 
body  that  sleep  will  come  in  time  of  its  own  accord.  It  is 
said  that  Demosthenes's  pronunciation  was  naturally  indis- 
tinct and  defective;  the  will  to  be  an  orator  was  not  able, 


■  i 

I 


t;, 


til  ' 


i 


iii  I 


470 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


471 


per  86,  to  coerce  the  organs  of  speech,  but  it  was  able  to 
prescribe  to  nature  long  and  arduous  tasks  and  to  make  these 
serve  the  desired  end.     Inner  nature  is  susceptible  of  being 
influenced  in  the  same  way.    A  man  knows  that  he  has  a 
dangerous  tendency  to  anger.     He  decides  to  overcome  it. 
His  prudence  and  his  good  resolutions  alone  cannot,  of  course, 
by  their  mere  presence,  repress  the  violent  fit  of  temper  the 
very  first  time  it  breaks  out  again.     But  they  can  take  the 
proper  precautions  necessary  to  subdue  it  gradually.     They 
determine  him  to  avoid  temptation ;  every   organ,  however, 
that  is  not  exercised  decays.    His  mind  is  filled  with  examples 
of  the  injurious  effects  of  anger  as  well  as  with  examples  of 
self-control ;  he  even  makes  use  of  trivial  aids :  we  accustom 
ourselves  to  say  a  prayer  or  to  recite  a  few  verses  when  we 
are  seized  with   anger.     Hence,  a  man  can  unquestionably 
transform  his  nature  by  his  will.    He  may  by  inhibiting  cer- 
tain  impulses   destroy   them,   and   develop   and   strengthen 
weak  impulses  by  habit.     Habit,  says  the  proverb,  is  second 
nature. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  shall  have  to  say  that  this  formative 
principle  itself  must  be  native  to  him ;  this  he  cannot  give  him- 
self by  his  will,  for  it  is  the  innermost  will  itself.  Man  does 
not  exist  before  himself,  choosing  or  determining  his  will  by 
his  will ;  that  would  be  equivalent  to  Miinchhausen's  attempt 
to  pull  himself  out  of  the  mire  by  his  own  cue.  Only 
a  pre-existing  fundamental  will  can  determine  the  develop- 
ment of  the  empirical  character  in  the  course  of  life.  In  so 
far,  but  only  in  so  far,  Schopenhauer  is  right :  the  character 
does  not  change.  Unless  a  man  sees  the  harmf ulness  of  anger, 
the  disgracefulness  of  cowardice  and  falsehood,  unless  he 
already  has  the  will  to  oppose  these,  he  will,  of  course, 
not  be  able  to  train  himself  to  gentleness  or  courage.  But 
Schopenhauer  is  wrong  when  he  misinterprets  the  proposition 
to  mean  that  a  change  of  the  nature  and  of  the  modes  of 
action  of  the  will  is  impossible.    That  is  not  only  a  false, 


but  also  a  dangerous,  discouraging  doctrine.  We  are  bound 
to  hold  that  whoever  desires  to  change  can  do  so ;  only,  the 
will  must  be  in  earnest,  it  must  desire  the  means  which  lead 
to  the  end.     Empty  wishes  will  not  do  it. 

The  old  psychology,  which  was  developed  mainly  as  an 
aid  to  practical  philosophy,  offers  some  useful  conceptions 
for  our  practical  guidance.  Thus,  for  example,  the  Pla- 
tonic division  of  the  soul  into  reason,  will,  and  animal  desire, 
is  an  admirable  help  to  the  moral  preacher.  Here  the  subject 
of  freedom  is,  practically  considered,  a  very  simple  and  effect- 
ive affair.  The  reason  is  the  real  ego,  the  free  self  of  man  ; 
it  is  combined  in  our  earthly  life  with  animal  desires  and 
feelings ;  its  function  is  to  educate  and  control  these  in  such 
a  way  that  they  will  serve  the  reason  and  its  ends.  Noble 
courage,  righteous  anger,  the  joyful  craving  for  honor  and 
distinction,  assist  it  in  disciplining  the  sensuous  desires. 
The  moralist  always  appeals  to  the  real  self,  he  urges  man  to 
be  mindful  of  his  mission  and  his  dignity ;  he  pictures  the 
rule  of  sensuous  desire  as  disgraceful  slavery,  in  which  the 
self  is  subordinated  to  the  animal  part  of  nature.  Spinozistic, 
Wolffian,  and  Kantian  ethics  employ  similar  conceptions.  In 
the  first  two  systems  the  opposition  between  reason  and  the 
affective  states,  between  the  higher  and  lower  faculties  of  de- 
sire, is  emphasized  ;  in  the  latter,  stress  is  laid  upon  the  oppo- 
sition between  the  homo  phaenomenon  and  the  homo  noumenon, 
between  practical  reason  and  the  sensuous,  selfish  inclination. 
We  are  everywhere  confronted  with  the  notion :  The  freedom 
of^man^eans  the  control  of  the  spirit,  the  slavery  of  man 
means  the  rule  of  the  animal  desires. 

This  is  the  positive  significance  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
And  ethics  should  not  permit  the  whimsical  attempts  of  a  few 
metaphysicians  to  explain  freedom  of  the  will  as  the  cause- 
lessness  of  the  individual  will  or  volition,  to  induce  her 
absolutely  to  reject  the  so  fruitful  and  necessary  concept  of 
free  will.    Freedom  of  will  means,  according  to  the  popular 


Im  ) 


!   I; 

■I  :|ji 


472 


CONCEPTS   AND  PRINCIPLES 


usage  of  all  men,  these  metaphysicians  excepted,  the  faculty 
todetermine  one's  life,  independently  of  sensuous  impulses 


and  inclinations,  by  reason  and  conscience,  according  to  pur- 
poses  and  laws ;  and  that  man  has  such  a  faculty,  that  this 
really  constitutes  the  very  essence  of  man,  no  one  has  ever 
doubted. 


''^n^Mbfifmi^tti^  M  !««%*■ 


■■■*'»'  •*;■»  ,    „* 


•<*ir^ 


BOOK  III 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


m 


I  possess  three  treasures,  these  I  guard  and  prize  highly.  The 
first  is  the  love  of  humanity  ;  the  second,  frugality  ;  the  third,  that  t 
do  not  presume  to  be  better  than  any  one  else. 

Love  of  humanity  —  with  this  I  can  be  fearless  ;  frugality  — 
therefore  I  can  give  to  others  ;  freedom  from  ambition  —  hence  I 

have  no  one  above  me. 

Nowadays  we  despise  love  of  humanity  and  are  insolent,  we 
despise  economy  and  are  wasteful,  we  despise  modesty  and  strive  to 
surpass  every  one  else.     TJiese  paths  lead  to  death, 

Laotsee,  Taoteking  67. 
(After  the  translation  of  Noack.) 


CHAPTER  I 

VIRTUES  AND  VICES  IN  GENERAL » 

The  doctrine  of  duties  and  the  doctrine  of  virtues  are  dif- 
ferent modes  of  presenting  the  same  subject-matter.  The 
former  gives  us  a  system  of  rules  which,  as  commands  or 
laws,  specify  the  modes  of  conduct  essential  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  life.  The  doctrine  of  virtues  describes  the 
system  of  powers  by  the  exercise  of  which  this  end  is  realized. 
We  have  already  discussed  the  nature  of  duty.  Let  me  now 
add  a  few  words  concerning  the  nature  of  virtue. 

Virtues  may  be  defined  as  habits  of  the  will  and  modes 
of  conduct  which  tend  to  promote  the  welfare  of  individual 
and  collective  life.  Impulses  form  their  natural  basis. 
Virtues  are  not  inventions  of  the  moralists  ;  they  are  natural 
predispositions.  Predispositions  only,  remember;  for  im- 
pulses are  not  themselves  virtues  :  as  impulses  they  have  no 
moral  quality.  The  impulse  to  eat  is  not  good  or  bad,  but  it 
is  the  foundation  of  rational  self-preservation.  The  sexual 
impulse  is  not  good  or  bad,  but  it  is  the  natural  basis  of  the 
virtues  on  which  family-life  depends.  Compassion  or  sym- 
pathy, the  impulse  to  alleviate  the  pains  of  others,  is  not  good 
or  bad,  but  it  is  the  natural  foundation  of  the  virtue  of 
benevolence.     Similarly,  indignation  at  wrong  and  the  impulse 

'  [Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  II. ;  Sidgwick,  Jfethods,  Bk.  III.,  chap.  II. ;  Porter, 
Moral  Science,  Part  II.,  chap.  I. ;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Principles  of  Morals, 
Part  II.,  chap.  VII. ;  Dorner,  Das  menschliche  Handeln,  Part  II.,  section  1  ; 
Wiese,  Die  Bildung  des  Willens;  Runze,  Practische  Ethik,  §  17.  Runze  gives 
bibliographies  of  the  topics  discussed  in  the  following  chapters.  See  also  works 
on  Practical  Ethics  :  Hyde,  Everett,  and  Oilman.  —  Tr.] 


476 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VIRTUES   AND   VICES  IN   GENERAL 


477 


of  revenge  form  the  natural  basis  of  the  sense  of  justice. 
Moreover,  impulses  form  the  permanent  basis  of  the  virtues. 
They  cannot,  as  many  moralists  are  prone  to  assume,  be  sup- 
planted by  rational  reflection.  A  being  like  Spinoza's  sage, 
who  is  determined  to  action,  not  by  impulse,  but  by  reason 
alone,  does  not  exist  and  cannot  exist ;  any  more  than  Kant's 
dutiful  man,  whose  will  is  governed  solely  by  respect  for  the 
moral  law,  without  impulse  and  inclination.  Such  a  being 
would  not  be  a  human  being,  but  a  phantom. 

Impulses  are  fashioned  into  virtues  or  moral  excellences  by 
the    reason.      We    are  educated,    first,  by    the   reason    of 
others,  then  by  our  own  reason.     Human   life  begins  as  a 
purely  impulsive  life ;    the  reason  is  developed  slowly  and 
at  a  late  stage.    During  the  long  period  of  youth,  the  col- 
lective reason  of  the  race,  as  represented  by  parents,  edu- 
cators, and  teachers,  takes  the  place  of  individual  reason. 
Fixed  habits  are  the  result  of  this  education ;  in  them  the 
customs  (^Sitten)  of  the  community  become  individualized. 
Acquired   habits  constitute  an  extremely  important  part  of 
moral  culture  ;  they  obtain  control  over  life,  and  guide  it  with 
automatic   certainty.      The  important   elementary  functions 
of  life,  especially,  are  governed  by  them.     Cleanliness,  for 
example,  against  which  the  child  at  first  rebels,  becomes  a 
habit,  which  acts  with  the  regularity  of  a  natural  function. 
Most  closely  related  to  it,  is  shame,  which  is  implanted  and 
established  by  education,  and  soon  acquires  the   force  and 
certainty  of  an  instinct.     So,  too,  aversion    to  falsehood,  or 
politeness  to  others,  becomes  a  second  nature.     The  formation 
of  such  automatic  forms  of  reaction  constitutes  a  primary  and 
important  phase  of  moral  education.     The  second  stage  is  the 
gradual  development  of  the  individual's  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  moral  goods  :  this  is  the  function  of  moral  instruction. 
The  latter  will  always  have  to  consist,  at  first,  in  the  presen- 
tation of  concrete  examples  of  the  good,  and  — provided  the 
proper  care  is  exercised  —  of  examples  of  the  evil  also.     After 


many  concrete  facts  have  been  handled,  the  abstract  or  philo- 
sophical treatment  of  moral  concepts  will  gradually  be  taken 
up.  Perhaps  our  public  instruction  is  too  cautious  in  this  re- 
spect. Our  schools,  the  higher  as  well  as  the  lower,  are  afraid 
of  the  evil  effects  of  premature  abstract  instruction  in  morals, 
and  therefore  decide  to  omit  it  altogether.  I  fear  that  the 
omission  is  disastrous.  The  time  is  bound  to  come  in  the 
life  of  every  young  man  when  he  will  begin  to  inquire  into 
the  principles  of  moral  conduct  and  judgment ;  and  there  is 
danger  that,  being  wholly  without  guidance,  he  will  become 
the  helpless  victim  of  his  own  crude  thoughts  or  of  the  sophistry 
of  "  enlightened "  companions.  Principles  and  moral  in- 
struction are  not  in  themselves  necessary  to  secure  correct 
judgment  and  action,  but  they  are  necessary  to  protect  the 
individual  against  inadequate  and  misleading  principles. 

But  not  only  is  the  individual  educated  by  others,  he 
gradually  learns  to  educate  himself.  The  important  thing  is 
to  learn  the  great  art  of  governing  the  inclinations  by  means  of 
a  rational  will,  one  that  is  determined  by  principles,  to  fashion 
and  educate  the  impulses  according  to  an  idea  of  perfection, 
which  gradually  assumes  shape.  When  the  child  leaves 
school  and  the  parental  home,  his  education  by  others  practi- 
cally comes  to  an  end.  The  most  eventful  period  of  his  life 
now  begins,  the  period  of  incipient  moral  independence.  His 
previous  training  is  now  put  to  the  test ;  it  must  show 
whether  it  has  succeeded  in  establishing  the  power  of  self- 
government.  Not  many  discover  the  right  path  at  once ;  the 
art  of  self-government,  like  everything  else,  has  to  be  learned. 
It  can  be  acquired  only  by  constant  intercourse  with  the 
world ;  hence  there  is  an  instinctive  desire  at  this  period  of 
life  to  come  into  frequent  contact  with  men  and  things ;  these 
are  the  years  of  travel  (^Wanderjahre),  which  follow  the  years 
of  apprenticeship  (^Lehrjahre).  At  the  end  of  the  Wander- 
jahrey  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  thirty,  or  in  some  cases 
not  until  the  close  of  this  period,  the  inner  man  has  assumed 


478 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VIRTUES  AND  VICES  IN  GENERAL 


479 


It 


I 


definite  and  permanent  shape.  The  following  years  do  not 
possess  the  dramatic  interest  of  their  predecessors,  the  time 
of  great  crises  and  decisions  is  past ;  the  exercise  of  the 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  powers  and  capacities  which  have 
been  acquired  forms  the  content  of  the  age  of  manhood,  the 
Meisterjahre.  In  old  age  the  powers  diminish,  life  gradually 
loses  itself  in  reminiscenses,  and  so  drifts  into  the  past. 
Differences  in  moral  types  correspond  to  these  four  ages  of 
life.  Pliant  modesty  constitutes  the  inner  habit  of  the  well- 
trained  boy  ;  hopeful,  optimistic  idealism,  that  of  the  youth  ; 
persistent  and  energetic  action,  that  of  the  man ;  the  tranquil 
peace  of  contemplation,  that  of  old  age. 

This  would  answer  the  old  question,  the  discussion  of  which 
marked  the  beginning  of  Greek  moral  philosophy  :   Can  virtue 
be  taught  f     We  answer  with  Aristotle :  It  certainly  can ;  but, 
like  all  excellences,  it  must  be  practised  first  of  all ;  hearing 
others  talk  about  it  will  not  avail.     We  do  not  learn  to  walk 
and  to  ride,  to  teach  and  to  govern,  by  hearing  these  things 
talked  of ;  so  it  is  with  virtue.    Of  course,  practice  can  and 
must  afterwards  be  supplemented  by  theoretical  instruction  ; 
this  applies  to  moral  efficiency  as  well  as  to  physical  dexter- 
ity and  skill.     The  counsels  and  teachings  of  parents  and 
teachers,  of  spiritual  advisers  and  preachers,  may  assist  the 
moral  development  in  a  most  effective  way.     We  shall  there- 
fore by  no  means  agree  with  Schopenhauer  that  moral  instruc- 
tion and  moral  preaching  are  utterly  useless  ;  employed  at 
the  right  time  and  in  the  proper  place  they  constitute  an 
important  part  of  the  great  art  of  governing  souls.     Of  course, 
mere  babble  will  not  avail.     Such  instruction  will  prove  effec- 
tive only  in  case  it  comes  from  the  proper  source,  and  rests 
upon  a  profound  knowledge  of  life,  its  order,  and  its  laws. 
Virtues  are  normal  powers  of  the  will,  tending  to  preserve 
and  unfold  human  mental  life.     Vices,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  abnormally-developed  powers  of  the  will,  which  tend  to 
destroy  individual   life   and    that  of    the  surroundings;   or, 


rather,  not  really  powers  of  the  will  at  all,  if  we  mean  by  will 
the  rational  human  will,  but  abnormally-developed  natural 
impulses.  Vice  always  indicates  a  lack  of  will ;  indeed,  all  evil 
is,  according  to  the  old  view,  nothing  really  positive ;  it  does 
not  belong  to  the  essence  of  the  will,  but  must  be  defined  as 
a  lack  of  will.  And  this  is  true  also  in  the  sense  that  even 
the  natural  will  essentially  aims  at  the  good ;  evil  as  such  is 
never  the  goal  of  the  will,  it  becomes  a  part  of  it  only  in 
case  the  will  cannot  realize  a  good,  a  real  or  apparent  good, 
except  at  the  price  of  the  evil. 

The  fundamental  form  of  vice  is  lack  of  will-power  to 
harmonize  the  impulses ;  strong  natural  impulses  gain  abso- 
lute supremacy,  while  weak  ones  entirely  disappear.  When 
the  sympathetic  impulse  or  the  instinctive  faculty  to  anticipate 
in  feeling  the  more  remote  consequences  of  acts,  is  poorly 
developed,  and  the  defect  is  not  remedied  by  education  and 
self-government,  the  habit  of  selfishness  or  inconsiderateness 
arises.  Certain  impulses  may  be  hypertrophically  developed, 
and  may  gradually  crowd  out  all  the  others.  So  for  example, 
in  the  case  of  the  alcoholist,  the  desire  for  certain  stimulants, 
gradually  increases  in  strength,  and  all  other  impulses  die 
out,  such  as  the  impulse  to  work  and  acquire,  the  love  of 
knowledge  and  spiritual  activity.  The  sympathetic  feelings 
and  social  impulses  are  likewise  weakened  and  finally  extin- 
guished, and  with  them  shame  and  conscience,  which  at  first 
reacted  against  the  excesses,  disappear.  In  the  same  way 
life  is  debauched  by  other  abnormally-developed  impulses,  by 
unbridled  sexual  impulses,  by  the  impulse  to  acquire  and 
possess  property,  which  is  intensified  in  rapacity  and  greed, 
by  the  love  of  fame  and  honor,  which  degenerates  into  am- 
bition, etc. ;  these  monopolize  all  powers  and  all  strivings, 
and  finally  render  the  soul  completely  insensible  to  all  other 
interests  and  considerations. 

As  a  rule,  vice  is  the  result  of  defective  natural  endow- 
ments and  unfavorable  conditions  of  life  and  development.     A 


480 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VIRTUES   AND  VICES  IN   GENERAL 


481 


11.- 


I' 


m 


defective  education,  evil  associations,  unfavorable  economic 
conditions,  unhappy  domestic  relations,  will  utterly  destroy 
a  nature  that  would  have  been  preserved  and  might  have 
adapted  itself  to  its  surroundings  under  more  favorable  con- 
ditions. By  proper  treatment,  fitting  self-denial,  and  exer- 
cise, an  impulse  inclining  to  excess  may  be  held  in  check, 
while  weak  impulses  may  be  developed  and  strengthened  by 
timely  care.  This  shows  the  immense  importance  of  educa- 
tion, environment,  established  custom,  and  public  opinion; 
upon  these  rests  the  responsibility  of  society  towards  the 
individual.  Had  it  cared  for  him  and  educated  him,  he  would 
not  have  perished. 

Can  and  must  we  say  that,  however  unfavorable  the  natural 
predisposition  of  an  individual  may  be,  he  can,  under  the 
proper  conditions  of  life  and  development,  become  an  honest 
and  virtuous  man?  Is  Rousseau  right  in  holding  that  all 
wills  are  by  nature  good,  that  every  child  may  become  a 
righteous  man,  that  if  he  does  not,  education  and  unfavorable 
conditions  are  to  blame  ?  ^  The  age  of  pedagogical  reform 
accepted  Rousseau's  view,  and  was  stimulated  by  his  example 
to  the  performance  of  great  and  fruitful  deeds.  Even 
at  present  we  base  our  practice  on  the  hypothesis  that  this 
theory  is  correct,  and  must  do  so.  Education  universally  pre- 
supposes that  every  human  being  may,  with  the  proper 
attention,  love,  and  care,  become  an  honorable  and  efficient, 
virtuous  and  happy  man. 

So  far,  however,  as  the  theory  itself  is  concerned,  our  age 
has  become  somewhat  uncertain  and  sceptical.  Rousseau's 
optimistic  view  of  human  nature  will  not  easily  find  supporters 
in  our  day.  We  no  longer  believe  that  education  can  make 
anything  out  of  any  one.  Too  many  facts  contradict  the  old 
dogma  of  empiristic  psychology  that  the  soul  is  at  birth  a 
white  piece  of  paper,  capable  of  receiving  any  impressions 
whatsoever.     Hence  we  are  inclined  to  agree  with  a  realistic 

1  [See  Runze,  §§  13, 18.— Tb.] 


or  pessimistic  conception  of  humanity  that  there  are  children 
of  sin  for  whom  nothing  whatever  can  be  done,  individuals 
endowed  with  such  perverse  impulses,  exhibiting  such  a  total 
lack  of  shame  and  reverence  and  sympathetic  feeling,  as  to 
be  utterly  impervious  to  the  influences  of  education.^  The 
concept  "  moral  insanity  "  has  been  formed  to  apply  to  such 
cases. 

Facts  undoubtedly  exist  for  which  this  concept  has  been 
formed.  Not  only  are  there  persons  who  show  a  lack  of  in- 
tellectual power  which  amounts  to  an  almost  total  absence  of 
intelligence  in  idiocy,  but  there  are  some  who  are  completely 
devoid  of  moral  endowments,  without  being  totally  deficient 
in  intelligence,  although  the  latter  is  frequently  dwarfed  and 
perverted  in  such  cases.  Nevertheless,  we  may  uphold  the 
claim  that  there  is  no  absolute  lack  of  moral  endowment, 
no  absolute  perverseness ;  even  in  such  dwarfed  natures  there 
is  some  tendency  to  the  good.  If  only  they  had  received  the 
proper  sympathy  and  training  from  the  very  beginning,  they 
might  have  been  saved.  Perhaps  there  is  no  longer  any  hope 
for  them  later  on ;  when  such  a  defective  soul  is  subjected  to 
unfavorable  influences  at  the  outset,  it  may  soon  become  in- 
curable. And  this  is  apt  to  be  the  case ;  for  hereditary 
defects  and  imperfect  early  training  go  together.  Conclusive 
arguments  are,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  impossible  here ; 
faith,  however,  which  governs  our  practical  life,  must  cling 
to  the  assumption  expressed  in  Riickert's  lines : 

Schlage  nur  mit  der  Wiinschelrut' 
An  die  Felsen  der  Herzen  an  ; 
Ein  Schatz  in  jedem  Busen  riiht 
Den  ein  Verstandiger  heben  kann. 

It  is  customary  to  distinguish  between  two  kinds  of  duties : 
duties  towards  self  and  duties  towards  others.  The  notion  of 
duty  towards  self  has  been  rejected  by  some ;  there  can  be 
duties,  it  is  held,  only  where  there  are  legal  rights.     It  seems 

1  [See  Lombroso,  Tlie  Criminal ;  Striimpell,  Pedagogische  Pathologic— Tr.] 

31 


482 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


to  me  that  this  is  an  unnecessary  contraction  of  the  concept. 
If  the  individual  life  has  its  moral  problems  to  solve,  it  likewise 
has  its  duties.  If  the  individual  as  such  has  absolutely  no 
moral  problems  to  solve,  I  cannot  see  how  there  can  be  any 
duties  to  others,  either  to  individuals  or  collective  bodies,  ex- 
cept the  purely  negative  duty  of  non-interference.  We  cannot 
obtain  a  positive  quantity  by  multiplying  zeros.  Hence  I 
shall  retain  the  old  classification,  reminding  the  reader,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  not  a  legitimate  division :  there  are,  as  was 
shown  above,!  ^o  acts  which  affect  only  the  individual  or 
society,  hence  also  no  duties  towards  self  which  are  not 
at  the  same  time  duties  towards  others,  and  conversely. 

Corresponding  to  this  classification  of  duties,  we  may  also 
divide  the  virtues  into  two  groups;  we  may  call  them  m- 
dividualistic  and  social  virtues.  The  fundamental  form  of  the 
former  is  self-control,  the  fundamental  form  of  the  latter, 
benevolence.  They  are  rooted  in  the  two  fundamental  forms 
of  impulsive   life :  the  impulse  of  self-preservation  and  the 

sexual  impulse. 

We  shall  first  treat  of  the  duties  towards  self  and  the  in- 
dividualistic virtues,  wliich  are  based  upon  the  self-preserva- 
tive impulse  of  the  individual.  We  shall  take  up  the  separate 
spheres  of  action,  and  first  deal  with  the  education  of  the 
will  and  the  dietetics  of  the  affective  states ;  then  we  shall 
consider  the  hodily^  economic,  and  spiritual  life,  and  every- 
where attempt  to  define  the  problems  and  duties,  as  well  as 
the  capacities  and  virtues  pertaining  to  them.  In  conclusion, 
we  shall  discuss  the  problems  which  arise  from  our  relations 
to  others,  and  examine  the  duties  and  virtues  peculiar  to  this 
sphere. 

1  I.,  383  ft 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  WILL  AND  THE  DISCIPLINE  OF  THE 

FEELINGS,  OR  SELF-CONTROL  i 

1.  The  chief  purpose  of  all  moral  culture  is  to  fashion  the 
rational  will  so  that  it  may  become  the  regulative  principle 
of  the  entire  sphere  of  conduct.  We  call  the  virtue  or  ex- 
cellence which  regulates  our  behavior  and  conduct  by  the 
rational  will,  independently  of  momentary  feelings,  self- 
control.  We  may  also  define  it  as  the  capacity  to  govern 
life  by  purposes  and  ideals.  It  is  the  fundamental  condition 
of  all  moral  virtues,  the  fundamental  precondition  of  all 
human  worth,  nay,  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  human 
nature.  Animals  are  determined  by  blind  impulses,  but  the 
specific  excellence  of  man  consists  in  his  determining  his 
life  by  his  will ;  without  self-control,  no  freedom  and  no 
personality.  The  Greeks  call  the  virtue  of  self-control 
cra)<t>po(rvp7j,  healthy-mindedness.  'A(f)pa)v,  senseless,  foolish, 
is  the  man  whom  fear,  anger,  and  desire,  control,  causing 
him  to  act  irrationally  and  to  ruin  himself;  aco^pwvj 
healthy-minded,  rational,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  man  who 
keeps  his  wits  even  in  difficult  situations,  and  acts  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  self-preservation.^ 

1  [Aristotle.  Bk.  II.,  chs.  VII.  ff. ;  Bk.  III.,  chs.  IX.  ff. ;  Bk.  VIL ;  Paley,  Moral 
Philosophy,  Bk.  IV. ;  Sidgi?vick,  Bk.  III.,  chs.  IX.,  X.  ;  Spencer,  Inductions  of 
Ethics,  chs.  XII.,  XIII. ;  Porter,  Moral  Science,  Part  II.,  chs.  II.,  V. ;  Runze,  §§ 
20  ff. ;  Smytli,  Christian  Ethics,  Part  II.,  ch.  II. ;  Dorner,  pp.  356-378 ;  Fowler 
and  Wilson,  Part  II.,  ch.  I.  —  Tr.] 

*  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  no  virtue  was  more  universally  recognized  and 
extolled  by  the  Greek  poets  than  self-control.  Perhaps,  however,  it  would  be  a 
delusion  to  suppose  that  the  predisposition  to  aaxppoavvri  was  a  particular  trait 


! 


484 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


Self-control  ^  assumes  different  phases,  corresponding  to 
the  different  forms  of  impulsive  life.  As  its  two  fundamen- 
tal aspects  we  may,  with  the  Greek  moralists,  des:gnate  tem- 
perance Qr^KpdT€La)  and  courage.  Temperance  may  be 
defined  as  the  moral  power  to  resist  desires  attracted  by 

of  the  Greek  national  character.  Perhaps  Lessing's  celebrated  remark  also 
applies  to  nations :  we  talk  most  of  the  virtues  which  we  least  possess,  and  whose 
value  we  have  learned  to  appreciate  because  we  have  felt  their  lack.  The 
Greeks  were  gifted  with  fine  sensibilities  and  high  intelligence,  which  especially 
fitted  them  for  and  made  them  keenly  alive  to  all  kinds  of  play  and  art,  dial- 
ectics and  philosophy;  but  they  were  somewhat  lacking  in  energy  and  per- 
severance. That  is  the  way  the  Romans  regarded  tliem ;  in  comparison  with 
their  own  natural  seriousness  and  gravity  (gravitas)  the  Greeks  seemed  sanguine 
and  mobile,  cunning  and  fickle :  the  Frenchmen  of  antiquity.  They  had  a  poor 
opinion  of  their  talents  for  politics  and  war.  However,  it  is  this  very  thing 
that  made  the  Greeks  the  great  teachers  of  the  virtue  of  self-control.  The 
Stoics  became  the  moral  preachers  of  the  world,  directly  or  indirectly.  Their 
entire  system  of  morality,  however,  is  a  guide  to  the  discipline  of  the  emotions. 

Among  modern  authors  may  be   mentioned  the   physician  Feuchtersleben, 
who  has  written  a  widely  read  Dietetics  of  the   Soul  {Dielatik  der  Seele).     An 
excellent  little  book  is  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe's  (the  authoress  of  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin)    Little  Foxes.     Two  good  books  of  the  last  century  are  B.  Franklin's 
Autobiography  and  Campe's  Theophron.    Everybody  is  familiar  with  Goethe's  mag- 
nificent Siyriiche  in  Prosa  und  Versen.   Lagarde's  writings  (3d  edit.,  1891 )  have  the 
form  of  public  moral  sermons,  addressed  to  the  German  people.    They  remind  us 
of  Fichte's  Reden.     The  book  of  the  Swiss  Hilty,   G/iiek  (4th  edit.,   1895),  is 
making  many  friends.    The  Addresses  of  the  American  W.  Salter  also  con- 
tain moral  sermons.  —  These  addresses  were  delivered  before  "  Societies  for  Ethical 
Culture,"  which  exist  in  several  American  cities.    The  idea  of  such  a  society,  of  a 
united  ethical  party  regardless  of  nationality  and  creed,  had  already  attracted  the 
attention  of  B.  Franklin  (see  his  Autobiography).     «  Ethical  Societies  "  have  of 
late  been  transplanted  to  Germany ;  whether  they  wiU  take  root  here,  remams  to 
be  seen.     The  universal  love  of  morality  is  not  a  strong  bond  of  union  between 
men  ;  a  particular  purpose,  even  accidental  hatred  or  superstition,  has  greater 
binding  force.    These  ethical  societies  are,  first  of  all,  opposed  to  church  morality ; 
moral  sermons  based  upon  dogmatics  they  regard  as  ineffectual.     There  is  cer- 
tainly  room  for  much  improvement  here :  and  if  the  ethical  societies  succeed,  m 
the  slightest  degree,  in  bringing  ethical  culture  to  those  who  have  turned  their 
backs  upon  the  church,  they  deserve  not  hatred  and  contempt,  but  gratitude  and 
recognition.    They  may,  perhaps,  even  help  Christianity  in  gaining  a  foothold  in 
these  circles.     For  it  is  certainly  true  that  no  more  important  moral  events  ever 
occurred  upon  this  earth  than  are  reported  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  we  shall 
search  in  vain  for  more  effective  moral  sermons  than  those  in  the  Gospels  and 
Epistles.    [Blackie's  Self-Culture  deserves  a  place  in  the  list  of  books  mentioned 
here.  — Tr.] 
1  [See  also  Runze,  §§  9  f  •  —  Tr.] 


SELF-CONTROL 


485 


tempting  enjoyment,  when  the  gratification  of  such  desires 
tends  to  endanger  an  essential  good.  Courage  is  the  moral 
power  to  resist  the  natural  fear  of  pain  and  danger, 
when  the  preservation  of  an  essential  good  demands  such 
resistance. 

2.  Temperance  or  moderation,  ^  the  ability  to  resist  temp- 
tation to  sensuous  pleasure,  is  the  precondition  of  humaniza- 
tion.  The  animal  is  essentially  blind  impulse,  in  the  satis- 
faction of  which  its  life  consists.  Man,  too,  is  endowed  with 
an  animal  nature,  but  its  purpose  is  to  serve  as  the  soil  for 
a  higher,  spiritual  life ;  this  soil  is  prepared  by  the  discipline 
of  the  natural  impulses.  The  latter  are  not  to  be  eradicated, 
that  would  mean  insensibility  and  finally  death,  but  their  satis- 
faction is  to  be  so  regulated  that  they  will  not  only  not  disturb 
the  development  of  higher  life,  but  rather  assist  it.  The  rela- 
tion is  reversed  in  the  opposite  habit,  intemperance  (aKoXao-la) ; 
intemperance  is  not  merely  a  relapse  into  an  animal  state :  nay, 
the  higher  powers  and  gifts  of  man  are  here  subordinated  to 
sensuous  desire.  So  in  gluttony  and  the  worship  of  the  belly  ; 
all  the  arts  of  civilization  are  here  employed  to  excite  and 
satisfy  sensuous  desires.  So  pleasure-seeking  and  also  sexual 
dissipation  have  drawn  into  their  service  an  entire  industry 
of  exquisite  enjoyments. 

Even  the  most  superficial  examination  of  the  facts  cannot 
leave  us  in  doubt  as  to  the  value  and  effects  of  these  two  con- 
trary modes  of  action.  Intemperance,  dissipation,  inordinate 
love  of  pleasure,  first  of  all  destroy  our  sense  and  capacity 
for  higher  things ;  the  will  and  the  intellect  are  exhausted  by 
excesses ;  finally  the  sensibility  is  blunted  until  at  last  even 
the  faculty  for  enjoyment  is  lost.  All  passive  enjoyments 
deaden  the  sensibilities  ;  stronger  and  more  refined  excitations 
are  constantly  needed  to  procure  feelings  of  pleasure  through 
the  exhausted  organ,  until  at  last  the  chronic  state  of  dulness 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  roue  is  reached ;  the  powers  of 

1  [Spencer,  Inductions,  XII. ;  Stephen,  ch.  V.,  3  ;  Seth,  Part  II.,  ch.  L  —  Tr.] 


486 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


487 


the  organism  and  its  irritability  are  exhausted;  nothing  is 
left  but  the  repulsive  dregs  of  life.  —  Temperance  has  the 
opposite  effect ;  it  makes  the  entire  man  healthy  and  vigorous, 
capable  of  action  and  enjoyment. 

This  virtue,  like  all  habits,  is  acquired  by  experience.    The 
foundation  is  laid  by  a  good  education.    The  best  way  to  pre- 
vent the  growth  of  excessive  desires  is  to  satisfy  the  natural 
needs  in  an  appropiate  and  orderly  manner.    This  can  easily 
be  done  in  a  well-regulated  household,  but  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult under  conditions  of  luxury  as  well  as  of  poverty.     Per- 
haps  we  can  still   agree   with  John  Locke   that   an   honest 
farmhouse  is  the  best  place  for  rearing  a  child.     Gradually 
the  child  may  be  encouraged  to  give  up  little  things  of  its 
own  accord ;  we  cannot  begin  too  soon  in  teaching  the  child 
the  great  art  of  life  :  to  sacrifice  to-day  for  to-morrow.     The 
child  then  educates  itself.    The  sense  of  honor  may  be  ap- 
pealed to  as  an  ally  against  desire.     The  ability  to  bear  priva- 
tion with  equanimity  is  so  closely  related  to  courage  that  the 
boy  too  sees  the  connection :  it  is  weak  and  cowardly  to  yield 
to  desire.     Greek  ethics  is  full  of  excellent  moral  advice  on 
this  very  subject.    How  disgraceful,  it  says,  to  be  compelled 
to  obey  the  animal  or  child  in  us,  which  is  full  of  needs  and 
desires ;  how  beautiful  and  praiseworthy  and  in  keeping  with 
man's  dignity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence  which   is   not   disturbed  by  privation  and   want! 
Whoever  succumbs  to  his  desires  is  a  slave  to  objects ;  they 
draw  him  now  hither,  now  thither,  through  pleasure  and  fear. 
The  gods  are  without  needs,  and  therefore  without  fear  and 
desire ;  the  fewer  our  needs,  the  nearer  we  are  to  the  gods. 
These  are  sentiments  which  the  youth  of  all  ages  can  under- 
stand.    When  the  sense  of  honor  works  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, as  happens,  to  a  large  extent,  in  our  times,  the  relation 
is  an  unnatural  one.     There  are  perhaps  two  essential  reasons 
for  such  perverseness.     The  first  is  the  wish  of  the  youth  to 
show  that  he  has  the  means,  the  second,  that  he  has  the 


power  and  the  courage  to  indulge  himself.  The  latter  motive 
exercises  a  particularly  strong  influence  upon  the  young  man. 
He  is  afraid  of  being  looked  upon  as  a  baby,  standing  in  awe 
of  the  rod,  or  as  a  *'  goody-good  "  boy,  who  is  afraid  of  hell 
and  the  devil.  He  demonstrates  his  independence  as  a  man, 
and  freedom  of  mind,  by  an  open  violation  of  the  law.  The 
lad  who  has  just  been  confirmed  proudly  struts  up  and  down 
the  village  street  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  "  shows  off." 
In  the  same  way,  the  satisfaction  of  other  cravings  becomes  a 
matter  of  show.  We  are  ashamed,  to  use  Augustine's  expres- 
sion, of  not  being  shameless.  The  reaction  of  the  years  of 
indiscretion  (Flegeljahre  ^)  against  the  compulsion  of  educa- 
tion will,  to  some  extent,  make  its  appearance  everywhere. 
Perhaps  our  methods  of  instruction  contribute  largely  to  make 
the  reaction  so  acute  among  us.  The  type  of  the  libertine  is, 
like  the  type  of  the  priestling  (Pfaffe)^  a  form  of  degeneracy 
which  thrives  upon  Christian  soil.  It  was  not  known  to  the 
classical  world. 

The  most  fruitful  method  of  counteracting  the  growth  of 
cupidity  and  the  inordinate  love  of  pleasure  is  to  train  the 
individual  to  efficient  action.  All  successful  exercise  of  nat- 
ural powers  and  skill  in  labor  and  in  play  is,  as  Aristotle 
teaches,  accompanied  by  pleasure.  And  this  pleasure  is 
superior  to  the  pleasure  of  passive  enjoyment.  It  can  be 
procured  without  the  sting  of  desire.  It  is  more  independ- 
ent of  external  conditions;  enjoyment  consumes,  activity 
creates  commodities.  It  is  intensified  by  repetition ;  for  while 
passive  pleasure  increases  the  intensity  of  the  desire  but 
dulls  the  faculty  of  enjoyment,  action  increases  our  efficiency  ; 
and  the  greater  the  skill,  the  greater  the  pleasure  of  exercis- 
ing it.  As  in  all  cases,  the  better  is  here  the  enemy  of  the 
good  :  the  pleasure  which  we  derive  from  action,  especially 
that  resulting  from  play,  is  the  most  effective  means  of  sup- 
pressing the  pleasures   of   passive   enjoyment.     The  Greeks 

1  [The  puppy-dog  stage.] 


Ilif 


'' 


488 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


489 


fci 


possessed  a  powerful  antidote  against  the  love  of  pleasure 
among  the  youth  in  their  gymnastics  and  military  exercises 
and  games.  Since  it  was  impossible  to  attain  to  proficiency 
in  them  and  be  dissipated  and  effeminate,  the  sense  of  honor 
operated  in  the  right  direction.  —  We,  too,  have  our  military 
exercises,  but,  apart  from  other  unfavorable  conditions  under 
which  they  take  place,  they  come  a  little  too  late.  Between 
the  school  days  and  the  time  of  military  service  a  long  period 
of  freedom  intervenes  which  is  but  too  often  spent  in  dissipa- 
tion. For  this  reason,  too,  it  would  evidently  be  desirable 
gradually  to  advance  a  part  of  the  general  military  training  to 
an  earlier  age.  To  be  sure,  this  change  should  not  be  brought 
about  by  a  police  regulation,  which  might  simply  make  mat- 
ters worse,  but  by  a  change  in  popular  custom.  Perhaps  the 
old  Germanic  love  of  athletic  sports  will  be  revived  among 
us,  as  indications  seem  to  show. 

A  word  concerning  asceticism  ^  may  not  be  out  of  place  here. 
An  ascetic  life  is  characterized  by  the  habitual  renunciation 
even  of  moderate  and  legitimate  pleasures.  Modern  moral- 
ists, as  a  rule,  reject  it  as  an  aberration  ;  and,  indeed,  the 
principle  on  which  it  rests  seems  to  be  the  exact  opposite 
of  the  principle  of  welfare.  The  three  vows  of  monachism 
signify  the  renunciation  of  wealth,  or  material  culture;  of 
fame  and  power,  or  ideal  culture ;  and  finally,  of  family  life, 
that  is,  the  preservation  of  the  species,  or  the  precondition 
of  all  human  culture.  Nevertheless,  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
that  genuine  asceticism  arouses  not  contempt  and  aversion, 
but  respect  and  admiration,  even  among  pronounced  "  chil- 
dren of  the  world,"  that  is,  when  they  have  no  principle  to 
defend.  The  phenomenon  may  perhaps  be  explained  as  fol- 
lows. The  tendency  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  of  excess 
is  natural  and  universal ;  incontinence  causes  the  ruin  of 
many.     Excessive  temperance,  therefore,  does  not  seem  to  be 

^  [Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals,  I.,  113,  130;  II.,  101  fE. ;  Harnack,  Das 
Mdnchthum  ;  Runze,  §  11.  — Tk] 


dangerous,  but  meritorious ;  for  two  reasons :  The  incon- 
tinence of  some  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  directly  compensated, 
by  the  extreme  continence  of  others.  The  doctrine  of  the 
good  works  of  the  saints  finds  a  natural  support  in  this  view ; 
the  people  forms  a  whole,  the  good  and  evil  acts  of  its  mem- 
bers are  placed  to  its  account.  And  absolute  continence  is 
indirectly  meritorious  in  so  far  as  it  shows,  by  great  and 
striking  examples,  that  the  impulses  which  often  lead  to  ruin- 
ous excess  can  be  mastered.  Gratitude  for  this  educative 
effect  assumes  the  form  of  admiration. 

This  at  the  same  time  explains  why  asceticism  and  a  love 
of  the  world  go  hand-in-hand.  We  may  find  occasional 
examples  of  intemperance  among  a  poor  and  uncivilized 
people,  but  not  radical  continence.  Philosophical  asceticism 
first  appeared  in  the  Hellenic  world  when  the  art  of  good 
living  reached  a  high  state  of  perfection.  The  Roman 
Empire  was  the  soil  on  which  Christianity  found  favorable 
conditions  of  development.  The  more  sensuous  a  nation,  the 
greater  its  admiration  for  the  ascetic  life.  It  is  surely  not 
accidental  that  the  excitable  Romance  nations  cling  to  Cath- 
olicism and  celibacy  and  monachism,  whereas  temperance 
societies  are  common  among  the  Germanic  peoples,  who  are 
addicted  to  drink.  —  Moreover,  even  in  particular  individuals, 
an  intensely  sensuous  nature  is  apt  to  seek  refuge  in  asceti- 
cism. The  man  who  is  not  exposed  to  temptation  needs  no 
heroic  antidotes. 

From  this  it  also  follows  that  asceticism  cannot  become 
a  universal  ethical  rule.  It  would  defeat  itself  witli  both 
physical  and  psychological-aesthetical  necessity :  without 
its  opposite  there  would  be  neither  sense  nor  merit  in  it. 
The  value  of  absolute  continence  and  the  admiration  shown 
for  it  are  conditioned  by  the  fact  that  there  are  others  who 
have  not  received  the  donum  continentice,  even  in  a  moderate 
degree.  The  ascetic  himself  must  recognize  this;  he  cannot 
expect  everybody  to  imitate  him,  nay,  he  cannot  even  say  or 


490 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


intimate  that  his  mode  of  life  is  better  than  that  of  others. 
He  may,  at  most,  deem  himself  fortunate  for  having  escaped 
such  task-masters  as  most  persons  constantly  have  near  them 
in  their  impulses.     A  stern  and  haughty  puritanism  is  not 
edifying ;  it  arouses  antagonisms.     A  man,  however,  who  is 
gentle  and  humble  in  spirit,  who  asks  nothing  for  himself 
but  desires  others  to  have  everything  that  is  good,  even  that 
which  he  denies  himself,  will  gain  the  respect  and  confidence 
of  all,  especially  of  children  of  the  world.     Since  he  does  not 
enter  into  competition  with  the  world,  he  may  become  the 
repository  of  very  worldly  secrets,  like  Friar  Lorenzo  in 
Romeo    and   Juliet.     In    his  novel,  /  Fromessi  Sposi,  Man- 
zoni  has  drawn  for  us,  in  the  person  of  Cardinal  Borromeo,  a 
wonderful    picture    of    a    man   who   renounces    everything, 
and  thereby  obtains  the  greatest  influence  over  others.— 
Moral    preachers,  spiritual    as   well  as   secular,  are   in  the 
habit  of  complaining  that  no  one  will  listen  to   them   and 
give  heed  to  their  counsels.     Man's  hardness  of  heart  has 
been  the  subject  of  their  lamentations  from  the  days  of  the 
old  prophets  down  to  the  present.    Perhaps  the  fault  does  not 
lie  entirely  with  the  hearers.     If  these  preachers  would  only 
examine  themselves  as  closely  as  others,  they  would  perhaps 
occasionally  find  that  it  is  not  only  their  zeal  for  saving  souls 
that  actuates  them ;  the  things  which  they  cannot  or  dare  not 
or  do  not  wish  to  enjoy,  they  begrudge  others,  and  so  revenge 
themselves  upon  them  for  their  own  privations.     He  alone 
has  a  right  to  preach  morality  who  is  in  tlie  safe  possession 
of  a  good  that  absorbs  his  whole  soul,  and  is  entirely  without 
envy;  he  that  cannot  without  bitterness  bear  the  sight  of 
others  enjoying  what  he  desires  to  convince  them  is  worthless, 
should  first  preach  to  himself.^ 

1  The  Imitatio  Christi  admirably  describes  the  true  moral  preacher  and  his 
opposite,  the  habitual  moral  grumbler,  in  the  chapter  "  Of  a  Good  and  Peaceable 
Man."  "  First  keep  thyself  in  peace,  and  then  shalt  thou  be  able  to  make  peace 
among  others.  A  peaceful  man  doth  more  good  than  he  that  is  well  learned. 
A  passionate  man  draweth  even  good  into  evil,  and  easUy  believeth  the  worst 


SELF-CONTROL 


491 


3.  Unpretendingness  or  modesty  is  a  modification  of  temper- 
ance, its  inner  form,  as  it  were.  It  is  moderation  of  desire  as 
such,  the  moderation  of  the  desire  for  wealth  and  fame,  posi- 
tion and  pleasure.  Unassuming  modesty  consists  in  habitu- 
ally lowering  one's  pretensions  to  the  level  of  one's  fortunes. 
Its  effect  is  contentment ;  and  hence  it  is  the  safest  guide  to 
happiness,  just  as  its  opposite,  covetousness,  or  cupidity  is  the 
surest  means  to  unhappiness.  Everybody  is  complaining  of  the 
rarity  of  contentment  and  of  the  prevalence  of  discontent. 
Although  the  conception  of  a  past  golden  age  of  universal 
happiness  is  an  optical  illusion,  the  growing  discontent  among 
the  European  peoples  of  the  present  is  not  an  illusion.  Dis- 
content increases  in  direct  proportion  with  inordinate  desire, 
for  the  development  of  which  the  conditions  are  unusually 
favorable  in  our  age.  We  no  longer  have  a  settled  population ; 
everybody  is  on  the  move.  Several  generations  ago  it  was  the 
rule  for  a  person  to  remain  in  the  surroundings  into  which 
he  was  born,  during  his  entire  life.  Now  everybody  is  en- 
gaged in  fortune-hunting.  The  large  cities  are  the  centres  of 
the  chase,  they  excite  and  tempt  everybody,  and  everybody 
visits  them  or  lives  in  them,  at  least  in  the  imagination ;  every 
inhabitant  of  every  little  village  has  relatives  in  the  city,  a 
son  in  the  army  and  a  daughter  at  work.  The  metropolis  is  a 
large  bazaar,  in  which  thousands  of  desirable  things  constantly 
excite  desire.  These  wares  are  intended  for  all ;  it  is  purely 
accidental  that  not  everybody  can  buy  them  ;  you  and  I  could 
own  them  and  make  use  of  them  just  as  well  as  some  one  else 
who  has  accidentally  drawn  a  prize  in  the  lottery  or  won  a 
fortune  on  the  stock  exchange.     Class  pride  and  class  customs 

A  good  and  peaceable  man  turneth  all  things  to  good.  He  that  is  in  peace,  is 
not  suspicious  of  any.  But  he  that  is  discontented  and  troubled  is  tossed  with 
divers  suspicions  ;  he  is  neither  quiet  himself,  nor  suffereth  others  to  be  quiet. 
He  often  speaketh  that  which  he  ought  not  to  speak ;  and  leaveth  undone  that 
which  it  were  more  expedient  for  him  to  do.  He  considereth  what  others  are 
bound  to  do,  and  neglecteth  that  which  he  is  bound  to  do  himself.  First,  there- 
fore, have  a  careful  zeal  over  thyself,  and  then  thou  mayest  justly  show  thyself 
zealous  also  of  thy  neighbor's  good.*' 


Ki  ' 


492 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


493 


have  disappeared  in  the  "  anonymousness "  of  metropolitan 
life.  The  equality  of  the  masses,  manifested  in  the  similarity 
of  dress  and  appearance,  gives  all  the  same  rights.  Hence, 
since  every  one  constantly  sees  before  him  the  things  which 
others  possess  and  which  he  must  do  without,  for  no  good 
reason  whatever  —  horses,  servants,  drawing-rooms,  villas, 
clothes,  jewels,  articles  of  food  —  why  should  not  everybody  be 
discontented  ?  —  In  addition  to  this,  the  dam  which  religion 
formerly  erected  against  covetousness,  has  been  as  good  as 
washed  away  in  our  times.  The  thought  of  the  transitoriness 
of  everything  earthly  and  the  promise  of  eternity  have  lost  their 
hold  upon  mankind.  This  is  as  true  of  the  cultured  classes 
as  of  the  masses.  Formerly,  the  hope  of  a  future  life,  though 
it  was  not  very  inviting  to  the  rich  and  the  pleasure-seekers, 
consoled  mankind  in  general  for  the  hardships  of  this  life. 
But  what  can  console  men  now  who  have  no  hope  of  a 
future  reward,  when  fortune  fails  to  give  them  what  it 
bestows  upon  others  ? 

Is  there  no  cure  for  this  disease  ?  We  are  referred  to  the 
church  and  the  restoration  of  its  power.  If  by  this  we  mean, 
not  external  power,  but  an  inner  frame  of  mind,  humility  and 
piety,  then  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  remedy  would  prove 
effective.  Perhaps  nothing  but  true  inner  religiousness  can 
give  us  perfect  peace  in  regard  to  earthly  things.  And  I  am 
fully  convinced  that  the  church  has  had  and  still  continues 
to  have  a  salutary  influence.  I  know  of  nothing  that  has 
greater  power  to  raise  the  heart  above  the  vain  and  transitory 
things  of  life  than  the  Gospels  with  their  simple  and  grand 
facts,  teachings,  and  symbols.  A  proper  interpretation  of 
them  will  not  fail  to  move  the  hearts  even  of  our  age ;  and  it 
certainly  is  a  misfortune  that  a  constantly  increasing  portion 
of  our  population  is  becoming  farther  and  farther  removed 
from  the  influences  of  these  teachings. 

The  Greek  philosophers,  too,  suggested  a  remedy  to  their 
times,  which  suffered  from  the  same  disease :  Abandon  your 


false  conceptions,  above  all,  the  false  view  that  happiness  de- 
pends upon  prosperity.  What  is  troubling  you  is  not  the  lack 
of  certain  things,  but  the  belief  that  you  cannot  be  happy 
without  them.  Are  you  really  sure  that  their  possession 
would  make  you  happy  ?  But  certain  it  is  that  it  makes 
you  unhappy  to  desire  them  and  not  to  get  them.  Now, 
since  it  is  in  your  power  not  to  desire  them,  but  not  in  your 
power  to  obtain  them,  how  foolish  you  are  for  resolving  to  get 
them  instead  of  resolving  not  to  desire  them.  —  Yes,  you  say, 
but  it  is  not  in  my  power  not  to  desire  them.  —  Have  you 
ever  really  and  earnestly  made  the  trial  ?  Have  you,  who 
have  devoted  so  much  attention  and  energy  to  so  many 
things,  ever  devoted  your  attention  and  energy  to  this  art  ? 
Have  you  reflected  upon  it  and  practised  it  ?  Have  you  em- 
ployed the  aids  at  your  disposal?  Have  you  ever  turned 
your  gaze  away  from  the  things  which  excite  desire  ?  Have 
you  studied  others,  who  do  without  the  same  things  and 
others  besides, and  still  are  of  good  cheer?  Look  at  Socrates: 
he  passes  through  the  market-place  and  enjoys  the  sight  of 
all  the  beautiful  things  because  he  does  not  need  them.  Have 
you  ever  appealed  to  your  pride  to  help  you  against  vanity  ? 
Some  one  has  been  promoted,  and  you  have  been  passed  by ; 
you  have  not  been  invited  to  a  dinner ;  have  you,  Epictetus 
asks,  paid  the  price  ?  Of  course,  the  price  is  flattery  and  sub- 
serviency. Well,  then,  pay  the  price  at  which  these  things 
are  sold,  if  you  deem  it  wise ;  but  if  you  are  unwilling  to 
pay,  well,  then,  is  it  not  shameless  in  you  still  to  wish  to 
have  them?  —  And  if  theories  alone  will  not  help  you,  try 
practice,  try  asceticism :  in  order  to  break  your  own  vanity 
and  cupidity,  voluntarily  give  up  such  things  as  you  have. 
Strength  grows  with  exercise ;  you  must  merely  give  the  will 
an  opportunity  to  feel  its  power  against  desire.  You  are 
fighting  for  the  best  seat  in  the  theatre,  or  on  the  train,  and 
you  become  extremely  angry  because  some  one  has  beaten 
you ;  now  try  to  let  the  other  man  have  it  of  your  own  free 


I' 


494 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


495 


i 


i: 


will,  and  note  whether  you  have  fared  worse  than  usual,  and 
then  make  the  application  to  greater  things.  —And,  above  all, 
have  you  torn  envy  from  your  heart,  the  ugly  weed,  which 
poisons  and  tortures  both  body  and  soul  ?  If  not,  do  it  at 
once ;  and  do  not  believe  that  you  have  done  anything  for 
your  happiness  so  long  as  you  have  failed  in  this.  It  is  pain- 
ful to  desire  and  not  to  obtain;  but  much  more  painful  is 
it  to  desire  to  have  more  than  others  and  to  be  unable  to 
bear  the  thought  of  others  having  anything. 

Again ;  if  you  have  children,  help  them.  There  are  two 
ways  of  looking  at  life,  one  of  which  will  certainly  make  it 
happy,  the  other  unhappy.  The  first  is  the  habit  of  regarding 
everything  good  that  life  yields  as  surpassing  your  expecta- 
tions, and  every  misfortune  as  falling  below  them ;  the  sec- 
ond is  the  reverse  of  this.  You  have  it  in  your  power  to 
give  your  child  either  mood.  Grant  all  his  wishes,  give  him 
everything  he  sees,  let  him  choose  what  he  ought  to  eat  and 
drink,  what  he  ought  to  do  and  to  leave  undone,  remove  all 
obstacles  from  his  path,  bear  his  burdens  for  him,  praise  his 
ability  and  goodness ;  in  short,  be  all  tenderness  and  devo- 
tion ;  and  you  may  be  sure  that  he  will,  upon  entering  the 
world,  find  it  hard  and  niggardly ;  that  he  will  be  discon- 
tented and  unhappy.  If  you  are  unwilling  that  this  should 
happen,  steel  your  own  heart,  and  do  not  be  afraid  of  being 
called  an  unnatural  mother  by  all  educated  mothers. 

Not  long  ago  I  witnessed  the  following  little  incident :  Once 
there  were  two  little  girls,  perfectly  healthy  and  cheerful,  and 
blessed  with  the  best  of  appetites.  They  went  to  visit  an  aunt, 
who  loved  them  very  much,  and  did  everything  she  could  to 
please  them.  She  used  to  ask  them  before  each  meal  what 
they  liked  to  eat,  and  when  the  meal  was  served,  what  they 
preferred  to  have.  Before  two  weeks  had  passed,  these  two 
little  girls  no  longer  enjoyed  their  food ;  one  of  them  could  n't 
eat  this,  the  other  could  n't  eat  that ;  their  plates  were  always 
half  full,  and  at  the  end  of  every  meal  they  were  discontented 


and  in  tears.  "  How  is  it,"  asked  the  aunt,  when  the  mother 
of  the  two  girls  came  to  see  her,  "  that  things  are  so  different 
at  home  ?  "  "I  will  tell  you,"  she  answered  ;  "  at  home  I  never 
ask  them  what  they  want,  and  never  give  them  as  much  as 
they  call  for." 

Happy  the  man  whom  Fate  treats  in  the  same  way.  He 
that  is  able  to  choose  each  day  what  to  do  and  what  not  to 
do,  he  that  can  have  as  much  as  he  desires  to  have,  will  soon 
tire  of  life.  —  Hence,  be  thankful  that  you  do  not  get  every- 
thing you  ask  for ;  learn  to  desire,  so  Marcus  Aurelius  coun- 
sels you,  not  that  things  govern  themselves  according  to 
your  wishes,  but  that  your  wishes  govern  themselves  according 
to  the  things. 

4.  By  the  side  of  temperance  Greek  philosophy  places 
courage^  the  ability  to  resist  painful,  dangerous,  and  terrible 
impressions  by  means  of  a  rational  will.  The  former  is  the 
normal  conduct  in  respect  of  pleasure  ;  the  latter,  of  pain  and 
danger.  We  may,  with  Aristotle,  define  both  virtues  as  a 
mean  between  two  vices  :  temperance  is  the  proper  mean 
between  insensitiveness  to  sensuous  enjoyment  and  licen- 
tiousness ;  courage  the  mean  between  abject  cowardice  and 
blind  foolhardiness. 

When  an  animal  finds  itself  threatened  by  a  hostile  attack, 
we  may  notice  one  of  two  things :  either  the  attack  arouses 
fear  and  impels  it  to  flight ;  or  it  produces  rage  and  rouses  it 
to  defend  itself.  The  latter  behavior  is  peculiar  to  beasts  of 
prey,  the  former  to  their  victims.  Both  forms  of  action  are 
evidently  adapted  to  the  animal's  nature  and  mode  of  life; 
the  defenceless  animal,  whose  body  and  temperament  do  not 
fit  it  for  attack,  strives  to  preserve  itself  by  flight  and  con- 
cealment. Fear,  which  scents  the  danger  from  afar  and 
impels  the  animal  to  rapid  flight,  is  for  it  a  useful  natural  en- 
dowment. The  other  quality,  rage  and  ferociousness,  is 
equally  well  suited  to  the  beast  of  prey,  which  can  defend 

1  [Stepheii,  chap.  V.,  2.—  Tr.] 


V 


I 


li 


'li 


h   'f 


496 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


itself ;  it  must  constantly  be  on  its  guard,  externally  and  inter- 
nally, against  surprises  and  attacks ;  its  preservation  depends 
upon  the  success  with  which  it  solves  this  problem. 

Both  modes  of  conduct  are  also  found  among  men.     There 
are  men  who  run  away  like  sheep  at  the  first  sign  of  danger. 
There  are  others,  on  the  contrary,  who,  like  beasts  of  prey, 
are  straightway  impelled  to  blind  and  ferocious  attacks,  when 
threatened  or  injured.    Both  modes  of  conduct  are  condemned 
by  men,  the   former  as  cowardice,  the   latter   as  blind  rage 
or  foolhardiness.     A  different  kind  of  behavior  is  required  of 
man,  and  that  is  courage.    That  man  is  brave  who,  when 
attacked  and  in  peril,  neither  blindly  runs  away  nor  rushes 
into    danger,   but   retaining   his    composure,    carefully    and 
calmly  studies  the  situation,  quietly  deliberates  and  decides, 
and  then  carries  out  his  resolution  firmly  and  energetically, 
whether  it  be  resistance  and  attack,  or  defence  and  retreat. 
Prudence,  therefore,  constitutes  an  essential   part   of  valor. 
A  significant  custom  is  said  to  have  prevailed  among  the 
Spartans.     Before  the  battle  the  king  first  offered  sacrifices 
to  the  Muses,  "  presumably,"  says  L.  Schmidt,^  "  to  implore 
them  that  his  army  might,  even  during  the  battle,  retain  the 
pure  ApoUinic  freedom  from  wild  passion."  —  The  origin  of 
this  virtue  might  be  explained  biologically,  as  follows.    The 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  man  is  man.    In  battle  with  this  ad- 
versary courage   has  been  acquired  ;  it  is  the  means  of  de- 
fence against  the  most  fearful  weapon  of  attack,  the  intellect. 
Against  this,  neither  blind  flight  nor  blind  aggression  will 
avail,  as  is  seen  in  the  battle  of  man  with  animals.    Fear 
carries  the  fleeing  ones  into  his  net,  while  rage  brings  the 
ferocious  ones  within  range  of  his  sword  or  gun.     Such  an 
enemy  can  be  resisted  only  by  means  of  the  same  weapon, 
the  intellect,  that  is,  by  courage,  by  presence  of  mind  in 
battle.     The   nature    of    courage   is   somewhat   obscured    in 
popular  speech.    According  to  the  above  explanation,  courage 

1  Ethik  der  Griechen,  II.,  37. 


SELF-CONTROL 


497 


may  be  exhibited  in  retreat  as  well  as  in  resistance  or  attack. 
Popular  usage  is  inclined  to  regard  retreat  under  all  circum- 
stances as  incompatible  with  bravery.  Perhaps  the  cause  of 
this  one-sided  conception  may  be  sought  in  the  following. 
The  battle  of  man  with  man  is  uniformly  not  a  battle  of  the 
individual  with  the  individual,  but  a  battle  of  one  collective 
body  against  another.  It  is  evidently  an  essential  condition 
of  the  strength  of  a  company  of  fighters  that  the  individual 
persevere  in  the  struggle,  at  all  hazards,  and  rather  fall  than 
r\y  ;  the  power  of  the  collective  body  depends  on  the  confi- 
dence which  each  individual  has  in  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  other.     Courage  is  a  social  virtue. 

Martial  courage  is  the  first  form  in  which  this  quality 
receives  recognition,  perhaps  the  very  first  virtue  which  wins 
admiration.  Courage  is  originally  the  virtue,  cowardice  the 
vice,  as  the  Greek  and  Roman  usage  of  language  attests. 
And  youth  has  no  sincerer  regard  for  any  virtue  than  for 
stern  and  shrewd,  and  especially  magnanimous  courage. 

As  civilization  advances,  its  importance  diminishes.  Civi- 
lization makes  for  peace.  The  individual  does  not  have  to 
protect  himself  by  his  own  strength  and  courage,  he  enjoys 
the  protection  of  the  laws  and  the  police.  The  Indian  con- 
stantly carries  his  life  in  his  hands.  Even  during  the  Middle 
Ages  everybody  bore  arms,  at  least  outside  of  the  city  walls. 
We  have  laid  down  our  arms  because  we  no  longer  need 
them.  It  is  not  improbable  that  we  have  thereby  lost  our 
inner  readiness  to  defend  our  lives  with  the  weapon  in  our 
hands.  The  average  European  could  hardly  dare  to  compete, 
individually,  with  the  individual  Indian  or  Bedouin  in  personal 
bravery.  He  is  also  inferior  to  them  in  bearing  hardships. 
But  what  gives  him  his  superiority  is,  besides  the  instruments 
of  war,  organization  and  discipline.  These  are  the  things 
which  turn  the  scale  in  the  great  battles  of  civilized  nations. 
The  personal  bravery  of  the  individual  soldier  does  not  count 
for  very  much.     Our  entire  civil  and  military  education  is 

32 


498 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


499 


J 


!i;t 


I  r 

r','. 


k 

rii- 

r' 


little  adapted  to  produce  it;  its  main  object  is  to  develop 
discipline:  obedience,  however,  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
opposite  of  courage. 

6.  As  civilization  advances,  other  forms  of  resistance  come 
to  surpass  martial  courage  in  importance.  Chief  among  these  I 
mention  what  might  be  called  civil  courage,  independence  of 
thought,  characterful  self-assertion  against  the  great  pressure 
exerted  by  superior  and  inferior  forces.  Civilization  has  the 
tendency  to  create  relations  of  dependence  ;  dependence  upon 
men  takes  the  place  of  dependence  upon  nature  :  dependence 
upon  superiors  and  patrons,  friends  and  fellow-partisans, 
customers  and  voters,  society  and  public  opinion.  Depen- 
dence has  the  tendency  to  pervert  the  will :  it  inclines  the 
individual  to  accommodate  himself,  to  let  things  take  their 
course,  to  obsequiousness,  to  cowardly  self-denial,  to  falsehood 
in  every  form.  So  the  moral  duty  arises  to  develop  the  inner 
power  of  resistance  which  calmly  and  firmly  opposes  every 
attempt  to  subject  the  individual  to  established  customs 
and  authority,  which  serves  and  remains  loyal  to  truth  and 
justice,  regardless  of  whether  such  conduct  brings  favor  and 
popularity  or  disfavor  and  contempt.  To  remain  true  to 
oneself,  that  is  the  aim  of  such  ideal  courage.  No  one  can 
have  it,  the  centre  of  whose  life  does  not  lie  within  himself  ; 
whoever  makes  external  things  his  ultimate  goal  cannot 
attain  to  inner  freedom.  Spinoza  was,  in  his  life  and  teach- 
ing, a  great  preacher  of  this  doctrine  of  freedom. 

Another  form  of  courage  is  perseverance  or  persistence^ 
the  power  of  the  will  to  accept  and  continuously  to  endure  all 
kinds  of  hardships  and  exertions,  which  are  necessary  to 
realize  one's  ends.  It  is  the  virtue  of  the  working  man. 
Martial  courage  was  the  virtue  of  the  heroic  age,  persever- 
ance is  the  courage  of  the  industrial  age.  It  is  in  this  virtue 
that  the  civilized  man  so  immeasurably  surpasses  the  savage. 
The  savage  is  capable  of  great  momentary  exertions,  but  not 
of  making  a  continued  effort  to  overcome  the  small  obstacles 


in  which  all  work  consists.  A  partial  reason  for  this  is  his 
inability  to  conceive  far-reaching  aims.  Hence,  as  soon  as  the 
momentary  pressure  of  want  or  of  the  natural  impulse  ceases, 
he  yields  to  the  law  of  inertia,  which  also  governs  living 
bodies. 

The  love  of  order  may  also  be  regarded  as  a  phase  of 
perseverance,  the  habit  of  doing  everything  with  business- 
like regularity  :  a  very  valuable  quality,  which  procures  for 
us  freedom  and  tranquillity.  The  consequence  of  disorder  is 
confusion,  which  begets  fear  and  trouble.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  tendency  to  procrastinate.  When  our  work  is 
done,  we  feel  at  peace,  but  when  we  put  off  our  tasks,  we  are 
constantly  fretting  about  them,  and  are  finally  forced  to  per- 
form them  hastily  and  unsatisfactorily  at  an  inopportune 
time.  The  man  who  is  fifteen  minutes  late,  suffers  torture 
during  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Patience,  too,  is  related  to  perseverance.  It  is  the  ability 
to  bear  pain  and  suffering  without  being  overcome  by  them. 
We  may  distinguish  two  aspects  of  patience :  a  somewhat 
passive  patience,  which  bears  sufferings  without  complaint 
and  opposition,  and  the  more  active  power  of  the  soul,  the 
ability  to  survive  defeats,  disappointments,  and  losses,  and 
to  begin  life  anew.  —  Patience  is  feminine  courage.  Both 
forms,  especially  the  former,  are  more  characteristic  of  women 
than  of  men ;  women  not  infrequently  display  a  remarkable 
capacity  for  enduring  pain.  This  fact  is  evidently  due  to  the 
natural  difference  of  the  sexes  ;  women  are  more  experienced 
in  all  kinds  of  suffering  than  men.  A  man's  nature  is  im- 
pelled to  attack  and  defence  :  hence  he  finds  it  more  difficult 
to  yield  to  the  inevitable.  But  active  patience,  too,  the  elastic 
resistance  of  the  soul,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  valu- 
able qualities  of  the  woman.  It  is  harder  for  a  man  to  get  up 
again  after  he  has  met  with  misfortunes.  A  woman  generally 
finds  less  difficulty  in  beginning  anew  ;  she  soon  begins  to  hope 
and  fear  again,  to  work  and  strive ;  she  has  a  more  flexible 


m 

p.. 

b 


600 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SELF-CONTROL 


501 


b;  1 


Bl^i 


5; 
k 


nature.  Man's  strength  is  more  unbending  and  brittle.  A 
woman  is  also  better  able  to  battle  with  long-continued  troubles 
and  obstacles ;  when  the  man  impatiently  sinks  beneath  the 
load,  she  retains  her  equanimity  and  even  her  cheerfulness. 
For  that  reason  woman  is  the  born  guardian  of  youth,  the 
nurse  of  the  sick,  and  the  counsellor  of  old  age.^ 

Great  patience  in  suffering  is  the  invariable  mark  of  a  noble 
character ;  courage  and  perseverance  may  belong  even  to  a 
selfish  and  malicious  will.  Patient  resignation  in  suffering 
is  a  sign  that  the  violent  natural  impulse  to  life,  which  rebels 
against  suffering,  has  been  broken  and  silenced  by  a  higher 
will.  This  is  why  sufferings  which  are  accepted  by  the  heart 
and  patiently  borne  are  expiatory  :  think  of  the  thief  on  the 
cross. 

6.  A  third  form  of  self-control  is  calmness,  the  ability  to 
control,  by  the  rational  will,  such  emotions  as  result  from 
disturbances  in  our  relations  with  our  fellow-men :  e.g.,  anger, 
vexation,  ill -humor.  To  the  lack  of  this  virtue,  and  to  envy 
and  pride,  are  due  most  of  the  disagreeable  annoyances  which 
wear  out  the  lives  of  so  many  men.  Without  the  ability  to 
overcome  the  inevitable  petty  collisions,  intercourse  with 
human  beings  becomes  a  constant  torture.  A  man  moves 
into  an  apartment  house.  On  the  floor  above  him  lives  a 
family  with  half-a-dozen  children,  who  are  making  diligent 
use  of  the  first  right  of  man  to  use  his  hands  and  feet.  The 
noise  annoys  him,  he  loses  his  temper  and  in  his  anger  sends 
up  a  servant  to  say  that  the  noise  is  intolerable,  and  that 
the  gentleman  downstairs  insists  upon  greater  quiet.  What 
is  the  effect  ?  The  familv  thus  addressed  resents  such  inter- 
ference,  and  henceforth  lets   the  children  make  more  noise 

^  In  a  certain  sense  the  greater  capacity  of  women  for  bearing  sufferings  and 
misfortune  is  statistically  shown  by  the  smaller  number  of  suicides  among  i/vomen. 
According  to  statistics,  four  times  as  many  men  commit  suicide  as  women. 
Hence,  if  suicide  is  due  to  the  person's  inability  to  endure  life  any  longer,  we  can 
say  that  the  power  of  the  woman  to  bear  suffering  is  four  times  as  great  as  that 
of  the  man. 


than  before.  And  now  the  battle  is  on :  our  friend  begins  to 
storm  around  himself,  slams  the  doors,  stamps  with  his 
feet,  sends  for  the  landlord  and  the  police,  and  becomes  an- 
grier and  more  displeased  every  day.  In  this  way  his  house 
becomes  a  perfect  hell.  His  mind  is  filled  with  venomous 
discontent ;  and,  like  a  vessel  full  to  the  brim,  overflows  with 
bitterness  and  poisonous  malice  at  the  slightest  contact. 
And  in  the  meanwhile  he  is  deploring  the  baseness  of  man 
in  general. 

And  yet,  no  one,  evidently,  is  to  blame  but  himself,  he 
is  annoying  and  tormenting  himself.  He  is  reaping  what 
he  sowed  ;  wie  der  Gruss,  so  der  Bank.  Had  he,  instead  of 
sending  his  servant,  put  on  his  best  coat  and  called  upon  the 
mother  of  those  children,  whose  feet  are  ruining  his  brain, 
had  he  confessed  to  her  that  he  had  an  unfortunate  failing, 
that  he  was  extremely  sensitive  to  sounds,  and  had  he  begged 
of  her,  to  have  a  little  regard  for  his  feelings  if  she  could ; 
had  he  likewise  not  forgotten,  upon  leaving,  to  praise  the 
beauty  and  good  behavior  of  her  children  and  to  admire 
her  taste  in  furnishing  her  home:  everything  would  have 
been  so  different.  In  at  least  nine  cases  out  of  ten  —  and 
such  a  probability  makes  it  worth  a  trial — he  would  have 
been  kindly  received,  and  one-half  or  three-fourths  of  the 
disturbance  would  have  been  removed.  He  might  then  have 
prescribed  for  himself  a  little  Stoic  philosophy,  to  enable 
him  to  endure  the  remaining  fraction.  "  If  you  are  going  to 
bathe,"  Epictetus  admonishes  us,  "  place  before  yourself  what 
happens  in  the  bath  :  some  splashing  the  water,  others  push- 
ing against  one  another,  others  abusing  one  another,  and 
some  stealing:  and  thus  with  more  safety  you  will  under- 
take the  matter,  if  you  say  to  yourself,  I  now  intend  to  bathe, 
and  to  maintain  my  will  in  a  manner  conformable  to  nature." 
So  it  is  here:  when  you  move  into  an  apartment  house, 
think  of  what  will  happen  there ;  the  neighbor's  dog  will 
bark,  his    boys   will    romp  around,  his   daughters    will  play 


1 


'  '' 


|l    >: 


tug;   I 

lii 

i 


V  1 

I      n 

i 


I 


602 


DOCTRINE  OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


on  the  piano  ;  if  you  cannot  endure  these  things,  do  not  move 
in,  but  build  yourself  a  house  outside  of  the  city,  be  it  ever 
so  modest.  But  if  you  must  move  in,  tell  yourself  before- 
hand that  you  must,  and  yield  to  the  inevitable. 

To  do  all  this  you  need  not  even  have  any  love  for  human- 
ity—  that,  of  course,  would  make  it  easier  for  you;  it  is 
simply  a  matter  of  prudence.  However  righteous  your  anger 
may  be,  suppress  it;  anger  will  destroy  your  life  and 
happiness.  When  people  try  to  make  you  angry,  say:  I 
shall  not  allow  myself  to  be  made  angry,  for  I  shall  be  the 
one  to  suffer  for  it. 

Indeed,  it  is  very  strange :  we  know  that  we  must  always 
adapt  ourselves  to  the  nature  of  the  things  which  we  desire 
to  subject  to  our  purposes;  only  when  it  comes  to  human 
beings  do  we  seem  to  forget  it.  A  stone  is  in  my  way,  I 
do  not  scold  it,  but  walk  around  it  or  push  it  aside.  A 
watch  or  a  machine  is  out  of  order ;  we  do  not  beat  it,  but 
inquire  into  the  cause,  or  hand  it  over  to  an  expert  to  mend 
the  defect.  But  when  a  human  being  fails  to  do  our  bidding, 
when  a  neighbor  displeases  us,  or  a  friend  acts  in  a  manner 
which  we  do  not  consider  right,  when  a  pupil  does  not  know 
his  lesson,  or  the  soup  does  not  taste  right,  we  get  angry  and 
scold.  As  though  abuse  and  anger  were  the  panacea  for 
governing  human  souls !  A  human  soul  is  of  all  things  in 
the  world  the  most  complicated  and  most  difficult  to  handle ; 
and  hence  the  art  of  governing  souls  is  the  hardest  of  all 
arts.  And  since  it  is  the  most  important  art  for  our  happi- 
ness, it  surely  deserves  to  be  studied  with  greater  care.  The 
most  important  thing  in  this  art,  however,  is  the  ability  to 
retain  one's  composure ;  only  calm  and  prudent  investigation 
will  succeed  in  discovering  the  causes  of  the  trouble,  and  not 
until  these  have  been  found  can  the  proper  attempts  be  made 
to  remedy  it.  However  this  may  be  brought  about,  whether 
by  instruction,  example,  counsel,  encouragement,  assistance, 
admonition,  entreaty,  threats,   punishment,  —  under  all  cir- 


SELF-CONTROL 


503 


cumstances,  Bacon's  word  will  hold  good  that  he  alone  can 
rule  nature  who  obeys  her.  Any  one,  of  course,  can  get 
angry  and  scold,  but  this  is  merely  a  confession  of  helpless- 
ness, and  does  not  tend  to  improve  matters ;  nay,  it  is  apt  to 
make  them  worse.  Even  where  punishment  is  the  proper 
remedy,  it  will  be  all  the  more  effective,  if  administered 

calmly  and  firmly.^ 

7.  The  fruit  of  self-control,  which  reaches  its  completion  in 
the  virtues  of  temperance  and  unpretendingness,  courage  and 
perseverance,  patience  and  tranquillity,  is  inner  peace  and 
cheerfulness  of  mind,  Democritus's  e'Trt^u/i/a,  the  tranquUitas 
animi  of  the  Stoics.  This  is  not  only  in  itself  the  greatest 
part  of  human  happiness,  but  also  the  source  of  real  human 
pleasures.  The  calm  and  cheerful  soul  is  capable  of  the 
quiet  pleasures  of  reflection :  the  forms  of  things  are  mir- 
rored  best  in  the  tranquil  lake.  The  social  duties  thrive  in  the 
contented  heart,  -  justice,  veracity,  tenderness,  benevolence, 
faithfulness  ;  and  from  these  in  turn  spring  the  joys  which 
friendship  and  domestic  happiness  yield. 

This  is  the  path  which  leads  to  self-preservation  and  wel- 
fare. Wisdom  is  needed  to  find  and  follow  it.  Hence  all 
peoples  praise  wisdom  as  the  great  guide  of  life.  The  royal 
sage  of  the  Hebrews  mingles  his  praises  with  those  of  the 
Greek  philosophers:  "Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wisdom, 
and  the  man  that  getteth  understanding.  For  the  mer- 
chandise of  it  is  better  than  the  merchandise  of  silver,  and 
the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold.  She  is  more  precious 
than  rubies  :    and  all  the  things  thou  canst  desire  are  not 

1  C.  G.  Gordon,  the  hero  of  Khartoum,  who  quelled  the  great  Taiping  in- 
surrection  in  China,  one  of  the  greatest  tamers  of  men  that  ever  lived  onc^ 
wrote  :  The  older  we  grow  the  hetter  we  learn  to  treat  human  beings  as  though 
they  were  lifeless  objects ;  that  is,  to  do  for  them  what  we  can  without  canng 
whether  they  will  thank  us  or  not.  So  God  acts  towards  us  He  lets  the  ram 
fall  on  the  just  and  the  unjust,  he  seldom  meets  with  gratitude  he  is  most  often 
forgotten.  (In  an  anonymous  biography,  C.  G.  Gordon^  the  Hero  of  Khartoum, 
1885,  p.  178.)  [I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  the  book,  and  cannot  therefore 
quote  tlie  passage  exactly.  —  Tr.] 


K 


604 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


to  be  compared  unto  her.  Length  of  days  is  in  her  right 
hand;  and  in  her  left  hand  riches  and  honor.  Her  ways 
are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  are  peace.  She 
is  a  tree  of  life  to  them  that  lay  hold  upon  her :  and  happy 
is  every  one  that  retaineth  her.  The  Lord  by  wisdom  has 
founded  the  earth ;  by  understanding  hath  he  established  the 
heavens."  ^ 

1  [Proverbs,  HI.,  13-19.] 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  BODILY  LIFE^ 


1.  The  function  of  the  body  is  to  serve  as  the  or^an  and 
symbol  of  the  soul.  There  is  no  difference  of  opinion  concern- 
ing this  practical  estimate  of  the  two  phases  of  man's  nature. 
Even  the  materialist,  who  regards  the  soul  as  a  passing  func- 
tion of  matter,  will  accept  our  proposition ;  for  him  too  the 
body  is  the  servant  of  the  soul.  Every  one  is  likewise  agreed 
as  to  what  constitutes  a  good  servant.  To  accomplish  and 
endure  much  and  to  demand  little,  —  these  are  the  qualities 
which  we  all  consider  valuable  in  a  servant.  These  also 
determine  what  is  desirable  in  a  body ;  the  healthy,  strong, 
and  hardened  body  endures  much  and  wants  little :  the 
sickly,  weak,  and  pampered  body  does  little  and  makes  great 
demands.  Hence  follows  the  rule  of  duty  :  Do  what  is  suited 
to  preserve  and  increase  the  health  and  strength  of  the  body ; 
avoid  what  impairs  and  weakens  it.  —  The  other  function  of 
the  body  is  to  express  or  symbolize  psychical  life.  Beauty 
and  grace  are  the  visible  corporeal  manifestations  of  a  good 
and  beautiful  soul.  Grace  is  acquired  beauty ;  the  quiet  se- 
curity of  the  soul  which  is  master  of  itself,  is  reflected  in 
quiet,  steady,  and  appropriate  movements.  Hence  follows 
the  rule  of  duty  :  Educate  the  body,  so  that  it  may  appear  in 
this  visible  world  as  a  pleasing  expression  of  the  invisible 
beauty  of  the  soul. 

1  [Rousseau,  ^mik;  Porter,  Part  IL,  ch.  III. ;  Hoffding,  XI. ;  W \xnAt,  Ethik, 
Part  I.,  ch.  III.,  2,  3;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Part  II.,  ch.  I. ;  Uunze,  §§  9  f. ;  Dorner, 
pp.  336-356.  —  Tb.] 


i,.r 


!l 


Mil  <J^ 


m 


506 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


It  must  be  left  to  dietetics  and  gymnastics  to  develop  these 
general  formulae  into  a  system  of  rules.  Hufeland's  Macro- 
hiotic.a  simple  book, full  of  common-sense, may  be  mentioned 
as  giving  a  brief  presentation  of  the  subject.  I  shall  merely 
touch  upon  a  few  phases  of  the  problem. 

2.   Let  us  first  consider  the  question  of  nutrition.^     It  is 
characteristic  of  human  beings  to  prepare  their  food  artificially; 
and  they  do  it  universally  with  the  aid  of  fire.     The  use  of 
fire  for  this  purpose  plays  an  important  part  in  the  emancipa- 
tion of  man  from  nature.     Whereas  the  animal  is  limited  to 
the  territory  producing  the  plants  or  animals  upon  which  it 
feeds,  and  is  itself  a  product  thereof,  man  has  made  himself 
lord  of  the  earth  ;   everywhere  he  finds  what  may,  with  the 
help  of  fire,  be  converted  into  food.     In  other  respects  also, 
the  use  of  fire  in  the  preparation  of  food  has  exercised  an 
important  influence  upon  the  development  of  human  life. 
Wundt  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  by  necessitating  the 
common  preparation  of  certain  foods,  it  at  the  same  time  led  to 
their  common  consumption ;  to  it  we  owe  the  origin  of  the  com- 
mon meal  at  the  hearth.    With  the  meal  is  connected  the  sac- 
rificial worship,  growing  out  of  the  funeral  feasts ;  the  hearth 
becomes  the   altar.    The  meal   coming  at  regular  intervals 
and  dividing  the  day,  also  leads  to  the  first  division  of  time. 
The  child  still  receives  its  first  lessons  in  the  discipline  of  the 
animal   desires  by  governing  its   appetite  according  to  the 

meals. 

Let  me  add  a  word  or  two  concerning  degeneracy  in  nourish- 
ment. In  emancipating  himself  from  the  natural  guidance  of 
instinct,  which  controls  and  likewise  preserves  the  animal, 
man  exposes  himself  to  aberrations.  The  palate  is  stimulated 
by  artificially  prepared  food,  and  the  reception  of  food  excites 
pleasure  even  when  it  is  not  needed.  Glutton^/  and  hoggish- 
ness  are  universally  characterized  by  the  perversion  of  the 

1  [Spencer,  Ethics  of  Individual  Life,  ch.  IV. ;  Brillat-Savarin,  Physiologie 
da  guilt .  — Tr.] 


THE   BODILY  LIFE 


507 


organs  of  nutrition  into  organs  of  pleasure.  It  appears  that 
such  abuse  never  occurs  among  animals,  but  that  among 
human  beings  it  is  common  to  all  ages  and  all  peoples.  Travel- 
lers bring  us  horrible  reports  of  the  coarse  forms  of  gluttony 
practised  by  uncivilized  tribes.  All  of  these  seem  also  to  have 
hit  upon  the  manufacture  of  intoxicating  liquors,  or  to  have 
introduced  them  into  their  countries  from  abroad. 

Everybody  knows  to  what  extent  the  life  of  modern  civilized 
nations  is  devastated  by  drunkenness.  It  seems  that  the  Ger- 
manic nations  have  from  time  immemorial  been  more  predis- 
posed to  this  vice  than  the  Romance  peoples  ;  which  is  perhaps 
to  be  explained  by  conditions  of  climate.  In  certain  parts  of 
Germany  a  considerable  part  of  the  male  population  is  directly 
ruined  by  drunkenness ;  and  there  is  no  country  in  which  this 
vice  does  not  cause  the  most  serious  disturbances.  The  imme- 
diate effects  of  drunkenness  are  these :  the  economic  life 
becomes  unsettled,  family-life  is  neglected  and  destroyed,  the 
moral-spiritual  life  brutalized  and  debauched.  Pauperism, 
crime,  a  host  of  diseases,  insanity,  suicide,  degeneracy  of  off- 
spring, follow  in  its  melancholy  wake.^ 

The  conviction  is  growing  among  earnest  and  thoughtful 
men  that  a  very  serious  danger  here  confronts  the  future  pro- 
gress of  civilized  peoples.     How  shall  we  meet  it  ?2 

In  1881  the  German  government  introduced  a  bill  in  the 
Reichstag,  making  offensive  drunkenness  in  a  public  place 
punishable  (by  a  fine  not  to  exceed  sixty  marks  and  fourteen 
days  in  jail,  the  penalty  to  be  increased  in  case  of  repetition). 
The  permission  was  also  asked  for  the  temporary  confinement 
of  habitual  drunkards  in  asylums.  The  measure  did  not  pass. 
During  the  discussion  of  the  bill  the  objection  was  raised, 
among  others,  that  the  passage  of  such  a  law  would  lead  to 

^  Compare  A.  Baer,  Der  Alcoholismus,  seine  Verbreitiinfj,  und  seine  Wirhing 
c  lif  den  indivldueJlcn  und  sozialen  Organismus,  sowie  die  Mlttel  ihn  zu  hekdmpfen, 
1878.  [See  the  articles  on  Tenij)prance,  Abstinence,  Prohibition,  in  Johnson*! 
Cyclopedia.  —  Tr.] 

2  [Spencer,  Ethics  oflnd.  Life,  ch.  VI.  —  Tr.] 


;  liif 


608 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


the  unlawful  restriction  of  personal  liberty.  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  objection  had  anything  to  do  with  the  defeat  of 
the  proposition,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it  must  be  regarded 
as  thoroughly  unsound.  Drunkenness  incapacitates  a  man 
for  rational  deliberation,  but  it  does  not  hinder  him  from 
acting  irrationally.  Hence  it  leads  him  to  treat  others  irra- 
tionally and  possibly  to  abuse  them ;  indeed  the  causal 
connection  between  drunkenness  and  crime,  especially  crime 
against  persons,  is  a  well  known  fact.  Therefore,  it  is  un- 
doubtedly an  attack  against  the  security  of  others  to  put  one- 
self into  such  a  condition ;  even  the  threats  and  the  fears 
to  which,  for  example,  the  wife  and  children  of  the  drunkard 
are  subjected,  constitute  a  serious  wrong  against  which  the 
law  has  an  absolute  right  to  proceed.  And  it  is  no  less 
beyond  cavil  that  society  has  the  right  to  proceed  against 
habitual  drunkenness  by  confining  individuals  in  asylums. 
We  have  as  much  right  to  isolate  and  to  cure  the  alcoholist 
who  has  lost  his  will  power,  in  order  to  protect  him  and  his 
surroundings  against  the  consequences  of  his  disease,  as  we 
have  to  incarcerate  the  maniac  against  his  will,  that  he  may 
not  injure  himself  and  others.  Of  course,  it  goes  without  say- 
ing that  great  care  would  have  to  be  exercised  to  hinder  the 
arbitrary  and  unjust  execution  of  the  law.^ 

Hence,  it  seems  utterly  unwarranted  to  oppose  such  a  law 
on  the  score  of  personal  liberty.  The  freedom  temporarily  to 
put  oneself  in  a  state  of  moral  and  intellectual  insanity  can- 
not be  regarded  as  one  of  the  universal  rights  of  man. 

1  In  his  text-book  on  Psychiatry,  Krafft-Ebing  defines  intoxication  as  a  volun- 
tarily-produced, temporary  state  of  insanity.  (1,35.)  He  shows  in  detail  its 
similarity  to  forms  of  mental  disease.  Its  beginning  is  marked  by  a  slight  mania- 
cal excitation,  with  exalted  self-consciousness,  and  apparent  intensification  of  vital 
functions.  The  continued  use  of  alcohol  is  followed  by  a  gradual  decline,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  violent  maniac :  at  first  the  aestlietic  and  moral  presentations, 
which  in  health  have  a  controlling  and  inhibiting  influence,  disappear;  the 
drunkard  "  lets  himself  go,"  ignores  the  rules  of  decency  and  morality,  becomes 
cynical  and  brutal.  A  state  of  complete  exhaustion  follows,  consciousness  is 
deranged,  illusions  and  hallucinations  appear,  his  speech  becomes  thick  and  un- 
certain, his  walk  tottering,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  paralytic;  the  end  is  a  deep 
and  idiotic  stupor.    [See  Zola's  powerful  novel  UAssommoir.  —  Tr.] 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


509 


Nevertheless,  I  doubt  whether  the  defeat  of  the  measure,  at 
least  of  the  part  relating  to  the  punishment  of  public  drunken- 
ness, is  to  be  deplored.  In  addition  to  the  injustice  or  the 
harmfuhiess  of  a  law,  another  decided  objection  may  be  urged 
against  it,  and  that  is  its  inefficacy.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  a 
penal  law  against  drunkenness  would,  as  matters  now  stand, 
have  very  little  effect ;  it  would  not  contribute  much  to  the 
improvement  of  morals,  and  that  after  all  is  the  end  to  be 
desired. 

The  efficacy  of  such  a  law  would  essentially  depend  upon 
its  ability  to  render  drunkenness  disgraceful  in  the  eyes  of  the 
public,  which  it  is  not  at  present.     But  I  doubt  very  much 
whether  that  can  be  done  so  long  as  public  opinion,  not  only 
of  the  lower  classes,  but  also  of  so-called  good  society,  judges 
this  vice  so  leniently.     Several  years  ago  a  riot  occurred  in  a 
German  university  town,  which  for  several  days   kept  the 
entire  city  in  a  state  of  great  excitement.    The  reason  which 
induced  a  part  of  the  student  body  to  revolt  was  a  police- 
regulation  ordering  the  saloons  to  be  closed  at  twelve  o'clock 
midnight :  a  highly  beneficial  measure,  one  would   imagine, 
for  all  the  parties  concerned,  for  the  beer-drinkers  as  well  as 
for  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  city.     It  was,  however,  re- 
garded by  the  liberty-loving  youth  as  an  intolerable  restriction 
of  their  personal  freedom,  or  perhaps  also  of  their  academic 
freedom,  about  which  some  rather  curious  ideas  exist.     Now 
imagine  these  same  defenders  of  liberty  five  or  ten  years  later 
pronouncing  judgment  upon  drunkenness  in  court !     I  can- 
not make  myself  believe  that  the  law  administered  by  such 
representatives   would  exercise  an  educative  influence  upon 
public  morality.     Or  will  they  have  changed  by  that  time  ? 
Perhaps ;   but  even   then  would  not  their  own  past  rise  up 
against  them  ?    And  do  they  actually  change,  as  a  general 
thing  ?    The  hilarity  which  one  of  the  advocates  of  personal 
liberty  succeeded  in  arousing  among  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  when  the  measure  mentioned  above  was  discussed  in 


510 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


511 


the  Reichstag,  was  not  calculated  to  remove  all  doubts  con- 
cerning the  high  gathering's  respect  for  sobriety.  When  this 
speaker  remarked  that  the  drunken  men  whom  he  met  on  the 
streets  were  for  the  most  part  elderly  gentlemen  with  white 
cravats,  and  that  the  sight  of  them  did  not  arouse  in  him  feel- 
ings of  anger,  but  sympathetic  cheerfulness,  his  statement  did 
not  arouse  anger  in  the  meeting  either,  at  least  there  was  no 
perceptible  sign  of  it,  while  the  sympathetic  cheerfulness 
mentioned  by  him,  which  goes  by  the  name  of  general  hilarity 
in  the  reports  of  parliamentary  proceedings,  became  plainly 
audible.  And  the  long  and  sentimental  accounts  of  the 
drinking  bouts  {Kommerse)  of  old  gentlemen,  followed  by  the 
Katerfruhstilck,  which  so  frequently  appear  in  all  our  news- 
papers, are  evidently  written  with  the  intention  of  exciting 
good-humored  laughter  in  their  readers.^ 

So  long  as  "  good  society  "  treats  itself  so  leniently  in  these 
matters,  it  will  have  every  reason  to  doubt  its  ability  to  cure 
"  bad  society  "  of  drunkenness,  by  means  of  penalties.  The 
law  cannot  create  customs,  it  can  merely  protect  existing 

ones. 

May  we  expect  an  improvement  of  custom  in  the  future  ? 
Perhaps  the  case  is  not  hopeless.  A  student  of  history  might 
reach  this  conclusion.  At  the  beginning  of  the  modern  era 
the  habit  of  bestial  drunkenness  prevailed  at  the  courts  of 
princes  and  among  the  nobility.  Call  to  mind  the  chronicles 
of  Hans  von  Schweinichen.  The  vice  was  gradually  sup- 
pressed in  these  circles  during  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries,  through  the  influence  of  the  French  courts. 
From  the  courts,  however,  it  had  spread  to  the  middle  classes 
of  society ;  it  seems  to  have  reached  its  climax  in  the  aca- 
demic world  during  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 

1  W.  Martius  {Der  Kampf  gegen  den  Alkoholmissbrauch,  1884,  pp.  40  ff.)  gives 
us  an  idea  of  the  feeling  of  the  public  in  reference  to  drinking  and  drunken- 
ness. He  also  publishes  the  bill  mentioned  above,  and  the  constitution  of  the 
Society  against  the  Abuse  of  Spirituous  Liquors,  and  many  other  items  of 
interest  in  the  history  of  the  crusade  against  drunkenness. 


tury.     Here,  too,  it  has  had  to  give  way,  since  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  to  the  more  refined  manners  which 
gradually  came  to  prevail,  owing  to  the  development  of  higher 
spiritual  aspirations.     The  habit  still  persists  with  great  stub- 
bornness in  certain  academic  circles,  but  I  believe  we  can  say 
that  it  is  really  no  longer  considered  good  form.    Among  offi- 
cials and  the  substantial  citizens,  drunkenness,  though  judged 
rather  mildly  in  individual  cases,  is  not  regarded  as  one  of 
the  legitimate  habits  of  life.    At  present  it  is  largely  confined 
to  the  lower  and  lowest  strata  of  society,  into  which  it  has 
gradually  found  its  way  since  the  seventeenth  century.     We 
,  may  measure  its  growth  there  by  the  increase  in  the  manu- 
facture of  brandy,  which  has  reached  an  enormous  extent  in 
the  nineteenth  century.     Will  the  plague,  after  having  passed 
through  the  body  politic  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  leave  it 
again  ?    Perhaps  we  may  hope  so.     When  the  higher  classes 
of  society,  who  set  the  example  in  all  things  both  good  and 
bad,  take  the  lead  in  this  matter  and  repudiate  drunkenness, 
it  will  gradually  lose  caste  among  the  masses.     Whatever  is 
no  longer  regarded  as  "  refined,"  is  doomed  ;  so  soon  as  it  be- 
comes "  vulgar  "  it  is  cast  out.     The  progress  in  this  direction 
may  perhaps  be  hastened  by  the  fact  that  drinking  assumes  a 
more  and  more  brutal  and  repulsive  form,  under  the  influence 
of  the  whiskey-habit ;  there  is  some  poetry  in  wine,  and,  if 
need  be,  also  in  beer,  but  there  is  no  poetry  in  whiskey.     So 
soon  as  public  opinion  comes  to  look  upon  intoxication  as  de- 
cidedly vulgar  and  disgraceful,  it  will  be  possible  to  combat 
what  is  left  of  the  old  vice  by  laws  and  penalties. 

In  the  meanwhile,  we  have  here  a  wide  field  for  the  work 
of  societies ;  but  we  must  not  forget  the  good  old  rule :  First 
sweep  before  your  own  door.  The  beer-drinking  habit  of  the 
academic  and  non-academic  Philistines,  which  is  so  common 
in  Germany,  and  the  worship  of  the  belly  to  which  the  rich 
and  aristocratic  are  addicted,  are  equally  degrading.  Can  any 
one  who,  day  after  day,  from  morning  till  night,  for  hours 


612 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


and  hours,  sits  in  the  beer-shops,  enveloped  by  tobacco 
smoke,  and  listens  to  the  selfsame  stupid  talk  or  plays  the 
same  old  tiresome  game  of  Skat,  and  who  at  last  carries 
home  with  him  an  empty  and  stupefied  head,  do  any  serious 
and  earnest  work  ?  Can  any  one  who,  day  after  day,  revels  in 
the  pleasures  of  the  table  at  dinners  and  suppers,  throw  his 
soul  into  anything  ?  Will  not  a  feeling  of  lazy  satiety  take 
possession  of  him  and  extinguish  all  higher  aspirations  ? 

Now  what  remedies  shall  we  employ  against  drunkenness 
among  the  masses  ?    All  effective  measures  will,  perhaps,  aim 
chiefly  at  two  things :  the  removal  of  temptation  and  the 
discovery  of  a  suitable  substitute  for  whiskey  and  the  dram- 
shop.  The  so-called  public  coffee-houses,  which  were  originally 
established  in  England  and  afterwards  on  the  Continent,  at 
first  by  societies   and  subsequently  as  private  enterprises, 
have  made  a  good  beginning  in  the  latter  respect.     Moreover, 
every  improvement  that   is  made  in  the  conditions   of  life 
will  tend  to  counteract  alcoholism  among  the  lower  classes. 
Wretchedness  and  want,  insufficient  food,  poor  habitations, 
injurious  labor,  over-exertion,  indeed  an  uncomfortable  mode 
of  existence,  constitute  its  favorite  soil;  the  effect  desired 
is  the  temporary  stupefaction,  the  blunting  of  the  sensibility, 
caused  by  the  use  of  alcohol.    The  so-called  Gothenburg  sys- 
tem has  happily  succeeded  in  diminishing  the  temptation  in 
Sweden.    In  1865   a  stock  company  was  formed  in  Gothen- 
burg which  obtained  possession  of  all  the  dramshop-licences 
of  the  city,  and  considerably  decreased  the  number  of  drink- 
ing places.    It  then  placed  these  saloons  in  charge  of  its  own 
employees  and  limited  the  sale  of  liquors  to  a  very  short 
period  of  the  day.     The  net  profits,  minus  the  usual  rate  of 
interest,  are  turned  into  the  city  treasury.    The  system,  which 
has  been  adopted  in  many  cities  throughout  the  North,  not 
only  directly  diminishes  the  opportunity  for  drinking,  but  also 
removes  some   of  the  conditions  encouraging  drunkenness, 
for  example,  the  saloon-atmosphere  and  the  landlord's  love 
of  gain. 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


513 


Here,  moreover,  the  State  too  may  interfere,  without  hesi- 
tation, by  employing  the  proper  safeguards.  The  legislature 
has  finally  resolved  to  limit  the  gambler's  freedom  to  ruin 
himself,  by  closing  the  gambling-houses ;  it  has  passed  laws 
commanding  the  utmost  care  in  the  sale  of  poisons,  and  may 
consequently  take  precautionary  measures  against,  and  limit 
the  sale  of,  the  poison  which  claims  a  thousand  times  more 
victims  than  all  the  others  put  together.  A  Dutch  law  of 
the  year  1881  contains  some  very  stringent  regulations ;  it 
limits  the  number  of  dramshops  in  proportion  to  the  popu- 
lation, and  grants  licenses  only  for  one  year  at  a  time  ;  it  also 
punishes  drunkenness.  The  regulations  which  call  the  land- 
lord to  account  for  encouraging  excess  are  also  wise.  And 
the  demand  of  the  temperance  societies  that  no  one  be  legally 
bound  to  pay  debts  incurred  by  the  purchase  of  alcoholic 
liquors  surely  deserves  approval.  Finally,  it  is  also  feasible  to 
increase  the  tax  on  whiskey,  and  thereby  to  limit  its  consump- 
tion, or  at  least  to  hinder  its  increase.  To  be  sure,  these 
restrictions  are  opposed  in  Germany  by  quite  influential 
circles,  which  have  a  selfish  interest  in  increasing  the  sale  of 
whiskey.  But  is  it  not,  perhaps,  conceivable  that  the  masses 
will  some  day  see  that  the  whiskey-drinker  is  making  a  volun- 
tary tax-payer  of  himself  and  is  at  the  same  time  paying  trib- 
ute to  the  whiskey-distilling  landowner  ?  Will  not  the  German 
social  democracy  some  day,  perhaps,  adopt  abstinence  from 
spirituous  liquors  as  one  of  its  weapons  against  the  existing 
order  of  society  ?  It  would  not  in  my  opinion  be  the  worst, 
nor  the  least  effective  weapon.  The  English  trades-unions 
have  made  the  beginning  in  the  fight  against  alcohol.  The 
leaders  of  the  labor  movement  in  that  country  are  all  advo- 
cates of  total  abstinence. 

Let  me  say  a  few  words  regarding  another  stimulant, 
tobacco,  which  entered  upon  its  triumphant  march  through 
civilized  Europe  simultaneously  with  brandy.     It  is,  as  is  well 

known,  one  of  the  guest-gifts  of  the  new  world  to  the  old.     If 

33 


514 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


ever  the  Middle  Ages  could  be  supposed  to  pass  judgment 
upon  modern  times,  they  would  most  likely  say,  in  revenge 
for  the  many  evil  things  said  of  them :  Three  things  charac- 
terize the  modern  era :  whiskey,  tobacco,  and  the  French  dis- 
ease (^die  Franzosen)^  as  a  certain  affliction  was  called  which 
made  its  appearance  in  Germany  at  about  the  same  time. 
The  modern  times,  they  might  proceed,  are  fond  of  boasting 
that  their    civilization    is    superior  to    that   of   the   Middle 
Ages.    Now  if  civilization  consists  of  these  three  things  — 
a  view  which  the  "  savages  "  outside  of  Europe  to  whom  the 
Europeans  have  brought  "  civilization "  might  easily  be  led 
to  take  —  then,  the  Middle  Ages  might  say,  our  own  lack  of 
civilization  need  not  trouble  us  very  much.     Indeed,  "  it  is  a 
very  remarkable  fact  that  a  barbarous  Indian  custom,  the 
custom,  namely,  of  drawing  the  smoke  of  the  dry  leaves  of 
a  narcotic  plant  into  the  mouth  by  means  of  a  tube  or  a 
twisted  roll,  and  then  puffing  it  out  again,  or  of  stuffing  the 
same  leaves  in  pulverized  form  into  the  nose,  should  have 
been    transmitted    by   the    redskins  to  white,  yellow,   and 
black  men  all  over  the  world,  and  should  have  taken  root."  ^ 
Tolstoi,  too,  has  pondered  over  this  strange  fact.     In  a  little 
pamphlet,   Why  Bo  Men  Stupefy   Themselves  f  he  gives  his 
answer:  In  order  to  stupefy  their  consciences;  for  which 
tobacco  and  alcohol  are  especially  fitted.    There  is  a  great 
deal  of  rhetorical  exaggeration  in  the  reply ;  but  it  likewise 
contains  a  germ  of  truth.     Why  does  the  student  smoke  and 
drink  ?    Because  he  likes  it ;  or  because  he  does  not  know 
what  to  do  with  himself,  and  so  deludes  himself  about  his 
empty  and  burdensome  life? 

It  is  estimated  that  the  German  nation  spends  about  three 
hundred  million  marks  for  tobacco  annually.  I  certainly  do 
not  desire  to  begrudge  any  one  his  pleasures ;  but  could  we 
not  buy  something  better  for  three  hundred  million  marks 

1  V.  Hehn,  Ktdturpjlamen  und  Hausthiere  in  ihrem  Ubergang  aus  Asien  nach 
Europa,  p.  449. 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


515 


than  smoke  ?  If,  for  example,  this  sum  were  spent  in  im* 
proving  and  beautifying  our  homes,  then,  at  least,  the  three- 
fourths  of  our  people  who  are  only  passively  interested  in 
smoking  would  be  the  gainers  ;  and  perhaps  even  the  smokers 
themselves  would  not  lose  anything.  For  I  confess  that  I 
am  still  in  doubt,  after  many  years  of  experience,  as  to 
whether  smoking  causes  more  enjoyment  on  the  whole  than 
annoyance.  Was  any  father  ever  pleased  to  see  his  sons  or 
his  daughters  acquire  the  habit  ? 

Furthermore,  what  was  said  above  about  drinking  is  also 
true  of  smoking :  after  it  has  become  universal,  it  will  become 
vulgar,  and  then  it  will  be  abandoned,  first  by  the  privileged 
classes  and  afterwards  by  all.  Has  this  process  already  be- 
gun ?  It  seems  to  me,  there  are  more  students  to-day  who 
do  not  smoke  than  there  were  thirty  years  ago. 

Another  sign  of  the  times  is  vegetarianism^  which  has  made 
many  converts  of  late.  I  do  not  believe  that  everybody  will 
or  ought  to  follow  its  standard.  There  are  most  likely  sound 
reasons  for  the  consumption  of  animal  food  beside  vegetable 
food,  and  it  is  on  the  whole  indispensable.  I  also  doubt  whether 
abstention  from  meat  would,  as  the  enthusiasts  predict,  lead 
to  the  extermination  of  all  vices  and  ills.  And  as  for  the 
animals  in  whose  behalf  we  are  appealed  to  to  abstain,  —  why, 
the  abstention  from  meat  would  prove  disastrous  to  them ;  the 
animal  at  least  "  with  the  rose-colored  skin,  whose  cries  are 
so  much  like  human  cries"  (Tolstoi),  would  be  doomed  by 
the  triumph  of  vegetarianism.  On  the  other  hand,  the  move- 
ment is  evidently  the  expression  of  a  desire  for  a  more  beauti- 
ful, more  spiritual,  more  human  form  of  life ;  and  voluntary 
abstention  from  animal  food  (the  involuntary  abstention  is  not 
wanting,  as  we  know)  cannot  fail  to  have  beneficial  results, 
under  certain  circumstances. 

3.  Let  me  add  a  few  words  concering  habitation  ^  and  cloth- 
ing.   The  dwelling,  originally  a  protection  against  heat  and  cold 

^  [See  also  Oettingen,  Moralstatistik^  §  34.  — Tr] 


516 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE   BODILY  LIFE 


517 


as  well  as  against  hostile  attacks,  has  gradually  far  outgrown 
its  original  purpose :  the  cave,  the  tent,  the  hut,  the  house,  the 
burg,  the  city,  mark  the  stages  of  its  evolution.     Its  mission 
has  been  enlarged  so  as  to  embrace  the  wliole  of  ci^nlized  life. 
What  clothing  is  to  the  individual,  the  domicile  is  to  the 
family.     Within  the  walls  of  the  house  the  family  finds  pro- 
tection against  all  kinds  of  annoyances,  and  seeks  refuge  from 
inquisitive  curiosity  and   insatiate  '  greed.     In  the  home   it 
revoals  its  character ;   the  occupation,  the  mode  of  life  and 
thought  of  the  family,  are  expressed  in  the  form,  furniture, 
and  decoration  of  the  house.     The  memories  of  the  past,  both 
joyful  and  sorrowful,  cling  to  it,  and  so  the  dwelling  becomes 
the  necessary  framework  of  the  family  history.     It  is  no  less 
apparent  that  the  development  of   great  historical   institu- 
tions is  closely  connected  with  the  evolution  of  the  home : 
without  the  dividing  walls  of  the  individual's  own   hut,  we 
cannot  imagine  the  separation  of  the  particular  families  from 
the  original  herdlike  unity  of  the  horde.    The  evolution  of 
property-rights  is  doubtless  also  closely  related  to  the  same 
dividing  walls.     Moreover,  by  the  side  of  the  human  dwell- 
ing erected  by  the  individual  rises  the  house  of  the  gods,  the 
temple,  which  has  proved  so  stimulating  to  religion  and  the 
arts.     The  temple  has  also  had  a  great  influence,  as  Wundt 
remarks,  upon  the   evolution  of  the  sense  of   justice.     The 
peace  of  God  made  the  temple  the  refuge  for  fugitives.     The 
temple-peace  reacted  upon  the  development  of  the  house- 
peace  :  the  gods  avenged  its  breach,  whether  the  offence  were 
committed  against  the  host  or  against  the  guest.     Again,  the 
first  notions  of  international  law   owed  their  origin  to  the 
reverence   which  the  tribe  felt  for  the  temples  of  kindred 

gods. 

One  of  the  most  deplorable  results  of  the  recent  develop- 
ment of  social  life  is  the  forced  abandonment  by  larger  and 
larger  portions  of  the  population  of  the  dwelling  as  a  perma- 
nent home  for  the  particular  family,  and  the  crowding  together 


of  great  masses  of  people,  who  are  unknown  to  each  other, 
into  the  tenement  and  apartment  houses  of  our  large  cities. 
Even  the  wealthy  family  suffers  serious  loss  in  this  respect, 
being  deprived  of  its  peace  and  comfort,  its  freedom  of  move- 
ment, its  pleasure  of  possession,  its  feeling  of  neighborliness, 
and  the  love  of  home.  And  among  the  lower  classes  these  are 
not  the  only  disadvantages.  The  overcrowded  condition  of 
the  houses  tends  to  endanger  the  life  and  health,  happiness, 
morality,  and  domestic  feeling  of  the  occupants.  When  one 
family  possesses  but  a  single  room,  which  it  shares  with  sub- 
tenants and  lodgers,  real  human  life  is  no  longer  possible.^ 
It  would  be  a  great  blessing  if  the  modern  means  of  transpor- 
tation could  be  so  perfected  as  again  to  disperse  the  crowds 
of  people  whom  they  have  poured  into  the  large  cities.  Many 
families,  who  are  at  present  living  in  crowded  tenement- 
houses,  to  their  great  injury,  could,  even  now,  if  they  so 
desired  and  ceased  regarding  a  bad  habit  as  a  natural  neces- 
sity, occupy  their  own  homes  in  the  suburbs.  Here,  again, 
the  wealthier  classes  must  inaugurate  the  reform  by  forming 
better  habits  themselves.^ 

The  original  purpose  of  clothing  ^  was  partly  to  protect, 
partly  to  decorate  the  body  and  to  reveal  the  importance  of 
the  wearer.  Its  negative  object  was  to  conceal  the  animal 
portions  of  the  body,  leaving  only  the  face,  the  symbol  of  the 
spiritual  powers,  uncovered.  Dress  has  retained  this  dual 
nature  in  the  vicissitudes  of  historical  life.  The  costume 
symbolizes  rank  and  office,  age  and  sex,  joy  and  sorrow,  tem- 
perament and  mode  of  thought,  time  and  people.  By  means 
of  clothing  the  historical  and  social  position  of  the  individual 
is  constantly  impressed  upon  him  and  his  surroundings.     In- 

^  [See  Rupprecht,  Mensch  und  Wohnung  in  Werhselbeziehnnfj :  Laspeyres, 
Uber  den  Einjiuss  der  Wohnung sverhaltnisse  auf  die  Moralitdt  der  arbeitenden 
Classen.  — Tr.] 

2  Die  Wohnung  snot  der  iirmeren  Klassen,  Schriften  des  Vereins  fur  Sozialpolitik, 
vol.  L,  XXX.-XXXir.,  1886. 

8  [See  also  Jheriug,  vol.  IL,  311-329.  —  Tit.] 


518 


DOCTRINfi   OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


519 


deed,  we  may  say  that  dress  is  so  essential  that  historical  life 
and  social  order  cannot  be  imagined  without  it ;  naked  men 
are  unhistorical  men.     Sameness  of  exterior  marks  brutes  as 
unhistorical  beings,  dissimilarity   in    dress   is   the   outward 
manifestation  of  historical  and  social  beings.     Hence,  histori- 
cal changes  in  the  life  of  nations  reveal  themselves  in  changes 
of  costume  ;  try  to  imagine  Luther  in  a  swallow-tail  coat  and  a 
white  cravat,  or  Goethe  with  a  moustache  and  a  cut-away,  and 
you  will  see  that  dress  is  as  characteristic  of  man  as  an  his- 
torical being  as  its  skin  is  of  the  animal.  —  The  abolition  of  the 
old  class  distinctions  and  the  levelling  tendency  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  clearly  manifest  themselves  in  the  disappear- 
ance of  class  costumes.     On  the  other  hand,  the  dress  of  the 
state,  the  uniform,  has  become  more  prominent ;  distinctions 
spontaneously  created  by  society  are  giving  way  to  distinc- 
tions made  by  the  state.    Furthermore,  the  uniform  is  an  ex- 
cellent means  of  uniforming  and  controlling  the  inner  man. 
It   compels  the  wearer  to   represent  the  office  and  to  obey 
orders ;  he  cannot  retreat,  he  must  seem  to  be  what  the  uni- 
form proclaims  him  to  be,  and  so  becomes  it.     What  would 
an  army  be  without  uniforms? 

Tlie  difference  between  costume  and  fashion  consists  in 
this :  the  latter  is  an  arbitrary  invention  of  particular  individ- 
uals and  lasts  only  for  a  short  time.  Its  climax  is  marked  by 
the  complete  decline  of  costume.  Fashionable  attire  differ- 
entiates its  wearer,  makes  a  "  distinguished  "  person  of  him, 
not  so  much  because  it  is  a  sign  of  taste,  wealth,  or  costliness, 
but  because  it  creates  the  impression  that  he  is  a  leader  in 
society  or  that  he  stands  close  enough  to  the  leaders  to  notice 
the  changes  immediately  and  to  keep  pace  with  them ;  hence, 
also,  the  need  of  rapid  changes.  Fashion  is  the  feminine 
form  of  sport  or  speculation,  and  is,  like  all  sport,  capricious 
and  tyrannical,  stimulating  its  followers  to  do  their  best. 
The  health  and  welfare  of  many  a  woman,  the  peace  and 
happiness  of  many  a  home,  are  sacrificed  to  this  tyrant  without 


a  murmur.  Should  the  psychologist  succeed  in  inventing  a 
process  for  the  transformation  of  psychical  forces  —  as  the 
physicist  has  for  changing  thermal  or  electrical  forces 
into  motion — and  should  the  process  ever  succeed  in  con- 
verting but  one-half  of  the  energy  which  the  women  who 
obey  the  dictates  of  fashion  expend  in  destroying  their  com- 
fort, welfare,  and  freedom,  into  other  forces  of  self-sacrifice, 
the  invention  would  presumably  produce  a  greater  increase  in 
real  happiness  among  civilized  humanity  than  all  the  inven- 
tions of  this  century  put  together. 

4.  Another  important  part  of  dietetics  is  the  development 
and  exercise  of  bodily  powers.  Life  is,  according  to  Aristotle, 
action  ;  the  body  deteriorates  when  it  cannot  act.  These 
powers  are  exercised  in  two  ways :  in  play  and  in  work} 
Work  is  the  exercise  of  powers  for  the  sake  of  an  external  end ; 
in  play  the  activity  is  an  end  in  itself,  it  has  no  end  outside  of 
itself,  it  is  free  activity  ;  while  work  is  constrained  or  unfree 
action.  Play  is  especially  characteristic  of  youth.  In  the 
life  of  the  adult  it  is  overshadowed  by  work ;  but  it  is  not 
wanting  here  and  cannot  be  wanting  without  depriving  life  of 
an  essential  element.  A  country  consisting  entirely  of  fertile 
cultivated  fields  would  not  wholly  please  us  ;  we  should  miss 
the  heaths  and  the  forests,  the  moor  and  the  wilderness,  we 
should  miss  the  poetry  of  freedom.  Nor  would  a  life  please 
us  that  consisted  solely  of  useful  work  :  without  play  it  would 
be  without  the  poetry  of  freedom. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  with  the  advance  of  civilization, 
certain  dangers  are  threatening  life  from  this  side.  The  sphere 
of  play  is  becoming  more  and  more  restricted,  and  work  is 
growing  more  monotonous  and  mechanical.  In  primitive 
stages  of  civilization  work  is  freer  and  more  varied ;  it  has 
something    of    the    character    and    charm    of    play.      That 

1  [See  also  Spencer,  Ethics  of  Individual  Life,  chaps.  II.,  III.,  VII. ;  Runze,  §§ 
22  ff. ;  J.  E.  Erdmann,  Ernste  Spiele ;  Santayana,  The  Sense  of  Beauty, 
Bk.  L  —  Tr.] 


520 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


THE   BODILY   LIFE 


621 


11! 


i 


this    is  true  may  be    seen  from    the    fact    that    civilized 
men  indulge  in  hunting  and  fishing  as  a  kind  of  play  and 
sport.     Agricultural  pursuits,  too,  are  quite  free  and  full  of 
change ;  each  season  yields  new  forms  of  action.    The  peasant 
practises  a  hundred  arts,  he  handles  numberless  tools,  and 
comes  in  daily  contact  with  a  thousand  living  and  lifeless 
thin^'-s.     The  work  of  the  mechanic  is  not  so  free  ;  he  is  tied 
to  his  workshop ;  the  circle  of  his  activities  is  narrow ;  his 
work  consists  rather  in  the  constant  repetition  of  the  same 
performance,  which  consequently  becomes  more  mechanical. 
He  is  not  so  dependent  on  nature,  upon  the  weather  and  the 
seasons,  but  more  dependent  upon  human  beings.    All  these 
features  are  greatly  emphasized  in  the  great  metropolitan  in- 
dustries.    Labor  becomes  more  specialized  and  monotonous, 
the  working  man  is  less  dependent  upon  nature,  but  more 
dependent  upon  men;  the  natural  laws  which   govern  the 
life  of  the  peasant  are  replaced  by  the  laws  of  the  factory 
and,  in  more  modern  times,  by  the  laws  of  the  state,  which 
is    interfering  with  these    matters    more    and    more.     The 
metropolis    resembles    a   great    prison,  in  which  men    are 
confined  within  a  narrow  space  and   compelled  to   perform 
monotonous  tasks  ;  the  factory  and  the  workshop,  the  store 
and  the  counting-room,  the  street  and  the  home,  —  everything 
is  so  small  and  contracted  !     How  great  is  the  sense  of  oppres- 
sion felt  by  the  masses  may  be  seen  from  the  eagerness  with 
which  they  seek  the  open  when  they  are  dismissed  from  their 
work-houses  for  a  few  hours  on  a  Sunday.     Even  corporeal 
labor  is  apt  to  be  somewhat  mechanical  and  disappointing  in 
these  places.     It  is  not  accidental  that  art  shuns  the  towns. 
The  painter  does  not  paint  the  people  around  him,  the  privy 
counsellor  in  his  office,  the  teacher  in  his  class,  the  book- 
keeper at  his  desk,  the  workman  in  the  factory ;  or  when  he 
does  it,  there  is  almost  always  something  comical,  or  satirical, 
or  sentimental  in  the  picture.     He  prefers  to  seek  the  fisher- 
man on  the  sea,  the  huntsman  in  the  forest,  the  shepherd  on  the 


mountains,  the  peasant  in  the  fields,  the  carrier  on  the  high- 
ways. Why  ?  Most  likely  because  the  latter  live  and  act  as 
free  men  out  in  the  open  air,  while  the  former,  the  prisoners 
of  labor,  seem  ludicrous  or  pitiable. 

The  greatest  sufferers  are  the  young,  and  those  of  the 
higher  classes  perhaps  suffer  most  because  they  are  sub- 
jected to  such  conditions  for  a  greater  length  of  time.  The 
truth  that  life  is  movement  is  especially  applicable  to  the 
young.  Their  impulses  are  directed  towards  the  exercise  of 
bodily  powers ;  they  desire  to  run  and  to  climb,  to  jump  and 
to  dance,  to  build  and  to  destroy.  There  is  neither  room  nor 
opportunity  for  such  action  in  the  "  flat."  Free  and  unim- 
peded play  is  utterly  impossible ;  children  living  in  large 
cities  —  as  any  one  raised  in  the  country  cannot  but  note 
with  surprise  —  know  no  games  ;  they  have  no  play-grounds, 
no  companions,  and  without  these,  games  cannot  thrive  and 
grow.  In  polite  society  the  child,  instead  of  playing,  is  taken 
out  for  a  stroll  by  the  governess,  or  goes  to  the  doll  bazaar, 
or  attends  a  children's  party.  But  all  these  artificial  things 
do  not  satisfy  our  children,  and  inasmuch  as  their  love  of 
movement  and  exercise  cannot  be  suppressed,  tliey  are  in  the 
way  in  the  metropolitan  household.  Under  these  circum- 
stances the  school  proves  to  be  a  veritable  refuge :  there  they 
are  taken  care  of  and  kept  busy  for  a  number  of  hours  each 
day,  and  then  a  few  more  hours  are  consumed  at  home  in 
preparing  lessons.  Among  the  upper  classes  a  few  more 
lessons  in  music  and  drawing  are  deemed  indispensable,  and 
afterwards  a  few  more  hours  are  devoted  to  novel-reading  and 
card-playing.  And  so  it  happens  that  young  people,  from  fif- 
teen to  twenty  years  of  age,  at  a  time  when  the  body  needs 
most  exercise,  spend  ten,  twelve,  or  fourteen  hours  of  the 
day  sitting  down,  until  the  body  gradually  becomes  accus- 
tomed to  it,  and  the  desire  for  exercise  gives  way  to  a  gen- 
eral feeling  of  torpor.  In  this  way  the  foundation  is  laid, 
during  the  period  of  youth,  for  the  ailments  by  which  the 


622 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


THE   BODILY   LIFE 


523 


A-: 

% 


members  of  good  society  might  easily  recognize  each  other 
in  case  all  the  other  characteristics  should  ever  disappear: 
indigestion,  nervousness,  and  near-sightedness.  And  all  the 
physicians  and  watering-places  in  the  world  cannot  restore 
what  nature  gratuitously  bestows  upon  him  who  keeps  her 
commandments :  namely  a  state  of  healthy  exhaustion  and  a 
sound  sleep,  a  good  appetite  and  good  digestion. 

Matters  are  still  worse  among  the  female  portion  of  the 
population  than  among  the  men.  We  may  justify  or  at 
least  excuse  the  men  on  the  ground  that  society,  as  it  ia 
constituted,  demands  mental  labor  in  addition  to  manual 
labor,  and  that  this  is  so  difficult  and  complicated  as  to  make 
it  impossible  to  train  the  mind  properly  without  in  some 
measure  injuring  the  physical  powers,  and  that  therefore  the 
hypertrophic  development  of  the  brain  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  organs  must  be  regarded  as  a  sacrifice  to  society.  Such 
an  apology  can  be  offered,  although  the  question  may  still  be 
asked :  Is  not  the  cultivation  of  the  mental  faculties  compat- 
ible with  an  harmonious  development  of  the  physical  powers, 
and  is  not  bodily  health  the  precondition  of  all  healthful 
activity  ?  With  women,  on  the  other  hand,  the  case  is  dif- 
ferent. Spencer  quotes  a  remark  of  Emerson's:  The  first 
requisite  of  a  gentleman  is  to  he  a  good  animal  The  thought 
expressed  in  this  saying  is  especially  applicable  to  women. 
Indeed,  there  is  absolutely  no  excuse  why  the  health  of  girla 
should  be  sacrificed  to  "  culture."  Their  duties  in  after  life 
will  not,  as  a  rule,  demand  that  they  be  able  to  speak  three  or 
four  languages,  but  that  they  be  able  to  manage  their  house- 
hold affairs  and  educate  their  children,  things  with  which 
good  health,  strong  nerves,  and  good  eyes  have  a  great  deal  to 
do,  and  learning  and  languages  desperately  little.  Nor  can  we 
accept  the  excuse  that  there  is  neither  room  nor  opportunity 
for  work  in  the  city  home  ;  young  girls  will  always  find  plenty 
of  opportunity  for  work  and  service  in  every  household. 

This,   of   course,   brings   us   to  the  very  root  of  the  evil. 


Work,  that  is,  manual  work,  has  become  vulgar  ;  the  honor  of 
the  educated  daughter  would  be  compromised  by  her  doing 
housework — that  is  what  the  servants  are  for.  It  is  not 
even  genteel  to  wait  upon  oneself,  much  less  upon  others. 
I  confess  that  I  regard  this  custom  of  being  waited  upon  at 
all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  as  a  highly  efficient 
means  of  moral  and  physical  degeneration.  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock tells  an  interesting  story .^  A  'species  of  ants  which 
were  once  warlike  and  vigorous  conquered  and  made  slaves 
of  another  species.  They  became  so  accustomed  to  be 
waited  upon  that  they  were  finally  absolutely  unable  to  help 
themselves  ;  they  could  not  even  feed  themselves,  the  slaves 
pushing  the  food  into  the  masters'  mouths ;  the  only  thing 
which  they  still  did  without  aid  was  to  digest  their  food 
and  to  propagate  their  kind.  Does  not  this  sound  like  a 
satirical  fable  on  good  society  ?  A  man  that  has  been  con- 
stantly surrounded  from  youth  up  by  servants  who  do  every- 
thing for  him,  will  finally  become  so  helpless  and  dependent 
that  he  cannot  take  a  step,  cannot  tie  or  untie  a  knot,  without 
others'  assistance.  However  aristocratic  such  a  state  of  de- 
pendence may  be,  it  necessarily  becomes  a  continual  source 
of  annoyance  and  discontent.  "  Tout  notre  mal  vient  de  ne 
pouvoir  etre  seul,"  Chamfort  once  said ;  I  wonder  whether  he 
also  had  in  mind  our  dependence  on  servants. 

In  this  respect,  too,  imperial  Rome  seems  to  be  the  model 
for  our  age.  "  The  desire,"  says  Friedlander,  in  his  Sitten- 
geschichte  Rorn's^  "to  do,  nay  even  to  think,  as  little  as 
possible,  was  exaggerated  to  such  a  degree  as  to  become  posi- 
tively ludicrous.  Not  only  was  the  business  of  remembering 
the  names  of  clients  and  followers  assigned  to  nomenclators, 
there  were  even  people  who  had  slaves  to  remind  them  when 
to  eat  and  when  to  take  their  baths.  They  are,  says  Seneca, 
so  completely  exhausted  that  it  requires  too  much  effort  for 
them  to  know  whether  they  are  hungry  or  not.     One  of  them 

1  [AntSj  Bees,  and  Wasps,  chap.  IV.]  *  m.^  124. 


11 


i 


624 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE   BODILY  LIFE 


525 


asked,  after  being  taken  from  his  bath  and  placed  upon  a 
chair :  Am  I  sitting  down  already  ?  A  hundred  years  later 
Lucian  reports,  to  his  surprise  and  disgust,  that  it  was  cus- 
tomg,ry  for  aristocratic  Romans  to  be  preceded  by  slaves 
whose  business  it  was  to  inform  them  of  any  roughness  or 
obstruction  in  the  street."  (No  one  was  allowed  to  drive 
through  the  narrow  streets  of  Rome  during  the  day.)  We 
see,  the  aging  Romans  were  on  the  very  point  of  falling  into 
the  habits  of  the  ants  mentioned  above. 

Friedlander  compares  the  slave-luxury  of  imperial  Rome 
with  the  servant-luxury  of  modern  Russia  ;  hence,  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  conditions  in  that  country  may  not  be  out  of  place 
here.     Leo  Tolstoi  thus  portrays  the  wretched  state  which 
aristocratic  Russian  society  regards  as  essential  to  its  hap- 
piness :  "  They  lack  five  essential  conditions  of  human  hap- 
piness :    contact    with    nature,   manual    labor,   family    lifo, 
intercourse  with  human  beings,  health  and  a  painless  death. 
One  of  the  chief  requisites  of  happiness  is  a  life  in  the  open, 
in  the  sunlight,  with  plenty  of  fresh  air,  communion  with  the 
earth,  with  plants  and  animals.     Man  has  always  regarded 
the  want  of  such  things  as  a  great  misfortune.     These  people, 
however,  see  nothing  but  woofs,  stones,  and  wood  fashioned 
by  human  hands;  they  hear  only  the  sounds  of  machines, 
equipages,  cannons,  and    musical    instruments;    they   smell 
only    spirituous  liquors  and  tobacco    smoke.     Nor    do   their 
constant  travels  bring  them  any  relief.    They   are   carried 
in  closed  boxes ;  wherever  they  go,  they  find  the  same  stones 
and  the  same  wood  under  their  feet,  the  same  curtains  shut- 
ting out  the  light  of  the  sun,  the  same  lackeys,  coachmen, 
and  house  boys,  who  will  not  allow  them  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  earth,  plants,  and  animals.     Wherever  they  may 
happen  to  be,  they  are  everywhere,  like  prisoners,  deprived  of 
the  conditions  of  happiness."     Another  condition  of  happi- 
ness is  labor,  free  manual  labor,  which  stimulates  the  appetite 
and  invites  sleep.    Here,  too,  it  may  be  said  that  the  more 


happiness  any  one  has  acquired,  according  to  the  opinion  of 
the  world,  the  more  he  lacks  this  second  condition  of  happi- 
ness. "  All  those  whom  the  world  deems  fortunate,  high 
dignitaries  and  millionaires,  either  have  absolutely  nothing 
to  do,  like  prisoners,  and  struggle  in  vain  against  diseases 
resulting  from  want  of  physical  exercise  —  and  battle  with 
still  less  success  against  the  ennui  which  consumes  them ; 
or  they  do  work  whicli  they  despise,  like  the  bankers,  the  pro- 
curors,  the  governors,  and  ministers  and  their  wives,  who  buy 
gorgeous  furnishings  for  themselves  and  their  children."^ 

Count  Tolstoi,  who  was  destined  by  birth  and  rank  to 
become  a  member  of  this  society,  had  the  rare  courage,  when 
he  came  to  recognize  the  true  meaning  of  life,  to  renounce 
such  a  lot,  and  to  strive  after  true  happiness. 

Many  efforts  are  now  being  made  in  Germany,  let  me  say 
in  conclusion,  to  counteract  these  evils.  Especial  mention 
must  be  made  of  gymnastic  exercises  (Turnen),  which,  of 
course,  as  prescribed  school  exercises,  are  a  poor  substitute 
for  free  play.  They  came  into  vogue  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  with  the  rise  of  the  military  spirit  among  the  Prus- 
sian people,  and  were  originally  aimed  against  every  form 
of  effeminacy.  Jahn  and  his  disciples  desired  to  rid  them- 
selves of  the  effeminate  habits  which  resulted  from  French 
hyper-culture,  by  means  of  bodily  exercise,  hardships,  and 
privations,  and  to  regain  the  vigor  of  the  German  peasant. 
It  was  regarded  as  disgraceful  to  give  way  to  any  form  of 
pampered  sensuousness.  Gymnastics  have  gradually  come  to 
be  recognized  as  a  part  of  the  education  of  the  young  and 
likewise  of  military  training.  Perhaps  the  hope  is  not 
groundless  that  they  will  make  even  greater  progress  in  the 
future.  Should  their  hygienic  necessity  fail  to  gain  for  them 
the  recognition  which  they  deserve,  their  military  utility  may 
perhaps  aid  them.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  European  nations 
will  be  able  permanently  to  bear  the  enormous  burdens  now 

1  Ml/  Religion,  p.  210. 


:1 


1^ 


« 


1^ 


526 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


imposed   upon   the   community   and   the    individual   by   the 
increase  of  military  armaments,  and  it  may  ultimately  become 
necessary  to  improve  the  instruction  in  gymnastics  as  well  as 
the  exercises  connected  with  them,  and  to  begin  the  general 
preparation  for  military  service  at  an  earlier  age   than   at 
present.     This  plan  would  not  only  release  the  citizen  from 
service  during  the  later  years  of  his  life  when  the  long  inter- 
ruptions occasioned  by  military  service  are  bound  to  cause 
him  serious  injury,  but  would  have  many  other  wholesome 
effects.     The  bodily  exercises  could  be  carried  on,  during  the 
earlier   years,  in  direct  connection  with  the  games  of  boy- 
hood ;  they  might  be  continued  with  zeal  during  the  years 
intervening  between  the  school  days  and  the  time  of  service, 
and  thus  serve  to  counteract  disorderliness  and  dissipation ; 
and  finally  they  might  encourage  and  lead  to  the  revival  of 
public  games  for  the  young.     And  should  these  games,  which 
formerly  occupied  an  important  place  in  our  national  life,  be 
revived,  and  give  rise  to  more  beautiful  popular  festivals,  the 
German  people  would  derive  from  its  gymnastic  exercises  the 
same  benefits  which  the  Greeks  derived  from  theirs.^ 

Athletic  sports  are  also  coming  into  vogue  of  late  years  — 
races,  boating,  mountain-climbing,  bicycling,  and  so  forth. 
Though  a  great  many  evils  are  connected  with  these  exercises, 
they  have  this  good,  that  they  promote  the  physical  vigor  of 
the  upper  classes  of  society.  The  English,  the  leaders  in 
these  things,  owe  no  small  part  of  their  success  in  inter- 
national affairs  to  the  robust  strength  which  the  gentry 
acquire  through  physical  exercises  and  games. 

Still  more  recently  efforts  have  been  made  to  improve  the 
manual  skill  of  the  young  by  giving  them  an  opportunity  to 
train  themselves  in  the  use  of  tools.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  these 
attempts  will  succeed.  Practical  skill  is  a  desirable  thing. 
I  am  convinced  that  at  least  ninety  out  of  every  hundred  young 
people  who  attend  our  higher  schools,  would  find  more  pleasure 

1  [Ruuze,  §§46,47.  — Tr.] 


THE  BODILY  LIFE 


527 


in  manual  labor  than  in  their  school  exercises.  When  nature 
formed  the  eye  and  the  hand,  she  evidently  did  not  intend 
them  to  be  used  in  the  way  which  is  almost  the  only  one  known 
to  our  pupils :  that  is,  for  reading  and  writing.  The  Germans 
used  to  be  very  proud  of  their  mechanical  skill ;  during  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  their  cities  were  renowned 
above  all  others  for  the  skill  of  their  artisans.  Leibniz  once 
described  the  difference  between  the  French  and  German  na- 
ture as  follows :  Frenchmen,  he  said,  make  useless  things, 
which  are  simply  beautiful  to  look  at,  while  Germans  make 
things  which  not  merely  please  the  eye  and  satisfy  the 
curiosity  of  great  lords,  but  also  accomplish  something ;  they 
bring  nature  under  the  control  of  art  and  lighten  human 
labor.  —  As  late  as  a  century  ago  there  were  places  in  Ger- 
many  in  which  sailors  and  peasants  spent  their  leisure 
moments  in  carving ;  at  present  the  only  things  which  many 
a  man  can  handle,  besides  his  knife  and  fork,  are  his  pen  and 
his  cigar.  May  it  not  be  possible  for  us  to  return  to  our  first 
love  ?  And  if  by  doing  so  we  can  get  rid  of  the  new-fashioned 
contempt  for  manual  labor,  that  too  will  be  a  blessing ;  in- 
deed, we  should  not  regret  the  loss  of  some  of  the  idealism 
which,  in  imitation  of  the  ancients,  affects  to  despise  banausic 
work.  I  am  rather  afraid  anyhow,  that  we  are  not  making 
much  headway  in  Hellenizing  our  people,  and  perhaps  we  have 
less  reason  to  regret  being  honest  Germans  than  old  and  new 
humanists  try  to  make  us  believe. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  allude,  in  a  few  words,  to  the  opposite 
of  action,  to  rest  and  recreation.  Activity  means  expenditure 
of  energy ;  hence  nature  demands  that  activity  be  suspended 
in  order  that  the  loss  may  be  restored.  Regular,  long 
periods  of  rest  for  the  entire  psycho-physical  system  follow 
the  changes  of  day  and  night.  Jewish  tradition  has  estab- 
lished an  additional  period  of  rest  in  the  Sabbath.  This  is  a 
highly  beneficial  institution,  one  that  is  so  interwoven  with 
our  life  and  feelings  as  to  seem  like  a  part  of  the  natural  order 


528 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


itself.  How  was  it  possible  for  the  Greeks  and  Romans  to 
live  without  their  Sunday  ?  Finally,  during  more  recent 
years,  it  has  become  customary  for  those  engaged  in  the 
higher  pursuits  to  lay  down  their  work  for  longer  intervals ; 
vacations,  which  were  originally  confined  to  schools,  have 
gradually  extended  to  other  circles.  The  need  for  them  evi- 
dently grows  as  the  work  becomes  more  arduous,  systematic, 
and  monotonous.  Hence  it  is  to  be  assumed  that  greater 
portions  of  the  population  will  be  affected  by  the  custom. 

Periods  of  rest  have  a  double  purpose :  first,  the  restora- 
tion of  consumed  energy ;  secondly,  the  exercise  of  functions 
not  employed  in  the  regular  calling.  The  latter,  too,  is 
recreation.  Those  whose  calling  makes  especial  demands 
upon  their  mental  powers  will  find  recreation  in  the  proper 
exercise  of  their  bodily  powers,  in  play,  in  travel,  in  mechan- 
ical activity ;  those,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  work  chiefly 
calls  into  play  physical  forces  will  find  relief  in  mental 
activity,  in  reading.  Social  pleasures,  music,  games  of  all 
kinds,  are  excellent  means  of  recreation  for  all  alike. 

A  proper  balance  between  work  and  recreation  is  an  essen- 
tial condition  of  health,  efficiency,  and  happiness.  An  excess 
on  either  side  is  equally  dangerous.  It  is  now  universally 
admitted  that  the  development  of  industrial  production  has 
led  to  an  intolerable  excess  of  mechanical  work.  The  efforts 
of  the  labor  party  to  shorten  the  working  time  merit  our 
entire  approval.  Work  must  not  make  a  slave  of  man,  but 
should  enable  him  not  only  to  acquire  commodities,  but  to 
develop  his  powers.  He  should  not  be  a  mere  tool,  but  a 
personal  end  in  himself.  When  this  becomes  impossible,  when 
daily  labor  leaves  only  time  enough  for  the  necessary  animal 
functions  of  nutrition  and  sleep,  man's  life  ceases  to  be  a 
human  life. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  ECONOMIC  LIFEi 

1.  The  economic  life  has  its  origin  in  the  natural  needs, 
which  man  shares  with  the  brute.  When  the  functions  en- 
gaged in  the  satisfaction  of  these  needs  are  systematized  by 
reason,  two  institutions  arise  which  form  the  basis  of 
economic  life :  labor  and  property.  The  accumulation  of 
commodities,  which  is  the  original  form  of  property,  enables 
man  to  free  himself  from  the  slavery  of  momentary  needs,  to 
which  the  animal  is  subjected.  This  freedom  is  the  precondi- 
tion of  all  real  human  life  ;  without  it  there  can  be  no  syste- 
matic, purposive  activity,  no  mental-historical  life.  Through 
it,  what  remains  a  natural  process  in  the  animal  world  is  raised 
to  the  moral  sphere. 

We  shall  find  occasion  later  on  to  make  a  more  thorough 
examination  of  the  institution  of  property  and  the  historical 
forms  which  have  been  evolved  from  it.^  Here  I  simply 
desire  to  outline  the  moral  duties  which  the  acquisition  and 
consumption  of  commodities  impose  upon  the  individual. 

Commodities  are  acquired  through  labor.  In  the  more 
highly  developed  stages  of  civilization,  this  assumes  the  form 
of  a  calling  or  profession.  Professional  efficiency  and  fidelity 
to  calling  are  the  virtues  peculiar  to  this  field. 

^  [Paley,  Bk.  III.,  Part  1 ;  Spencer,  Inductions,  ch.  XI. ;  Porter,  Part  II.,  ch. 
VI.;  Jhering,  vol.  I.,  ch.  VII.;  Wundt,  Part  I.,  ch.  III.,  2  (d),  3  (a) ;  ch.  IV.  2 
(b),  (c),  (d) ;  Runze,  §§  52-64  ;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Part  II.,  ch.  1  ;  Dorner,  pp. 
347-353,  418-429;  Hoffding,  pp.  265-312;  Oettingen,  MorcUstatistik,  Part  II., 
ch.  1.  — Tr.] 

2  In  Bk.  IV.  3,  ch.  I. 


530 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


Under  healthy  conditions,  the  duties  of  the  calling  form  the 
centre  of  one's  entire  life.  The  boy  practises  his  future 
profession  in  play  ;  the  youth  leaves  the  parental  home  to 
learn  it,  and  the  man  devotes  his  whole  energy  to  it.  The 
avocation  determines  our  essential  relations  to  the  exter- 
nal world  ;  it  brings  us  into  contact  with  our  colleagues  during 
the  periods  of  work  and  rest ;  and  upon  it  depends  the  manner 
in  which  we  exercise  our  faculties  in  play.  Hence  the  calling  is 
the  guiding  principle  in  life ;  it  gives  it  steadiness  and  purpose. 
The  teleological  necessity  of  the  callmg  becomes  apparent 
when  we  consider  the  consequences  of  its  lack.  Both  rich 
and  poor  may  be  without  a  calling.  The  individuals  without 
a  calling  who  form  the  lower  fringe  of  society  constitute  the 
proletariat.  This  group  is  composed  of  those  who  have  no 
steady  work,  but  wander  from  place  to  place  and  beg  or  steal,  or 
otherwise  gain  their  livelihood.  Aversion  to  work,  dissipation, 
drunkenness,  recklessness,  vanity,  are  the  vices  which  draw 
individuals  into  this  group.  Moreover,  this  mode  of  life  is 
transmitted  by  heredity  ;  degenerate  families  raise  degenerate 
offspring.  The  metropolis  is  the  most  favorable  soil  for  the 
proletariat.  The  covetousness  which  finds  nourishment  there, 
the  temptations  which  lurk  about  in  thousands  of  guises,  the 
isolation  and  "  anonymousness  "  in  which  the  individual  lives 
among  the  masses,  the  occasional  scarcity  of  work  and  the 
loneliness  which  confront  him,  — all  these  are  conditions 
favorable  to  the  development  of  a  proletariat.  Such  a  life 
reaches  its  completion  in  the  infamy  and  shamelessness  ac- 
quired in  workhouses  and  prisons. 

Another  group  of  persons  who  have  no  calling  is  formed  at 
the  upper  fringe  of  society.  I  mean  the  professional  idlers 
who  live  on  their  interest  and  absolve  themselves  of  the  duty 
of  having  a  calling.  Looked  at  from  the  outside,  their 
manner  of  life  differs  from  that  of  the  other  class;  seen 
from  within,  however,  it  shows  many  points  of  resemblance. 
Besides,  these  two  classes  come  into  personal  contact  with 


THE  ECONOMIC   LIFE 


631 


each  other;  they   meet  in  the  demi-monde  and   among  the 
gambling  fraternity.     Both  congregate  in  large  cities,  both 
have  peculiarly  perverse  notions  of  honor,  both,  above  all, 
are  restless  in  disposition  and  unsettled  in  their  movements. 
Just  as  a  ship  without  a  cargo  is  aimlessly  tossed  about  by 
the  wind  and  the  waves,  so  the  life  of  the  rich  idler  is  the 
plaything  of  every  whim  or  mood  that  happens  to  strike  him. 
Nothing  is  required  of  him,  so  he  takes  up  now  one  thing,  now 
another,  only  to  abandon  it  again  at  the  earliest  opportunity. 
The  ability  to  will,  which  simply  means  the  ability  to  perse- 
vere, even  in  the  face  of  temporary  distractions,  is  gradually 
lost  when  not  exercised,  and  the  victim  perishes  from  an  in- 
curable softening  of  the  will.    The  disease  was  alreadv  known 
to  Plato.     In   the  Republic  he   describes  it  with  all  of  its 
symptoms  :  "  So  he  lives  [in  Plato  "  he  "  appears  as  the  demo- 
cratic son  of  an  oligarchical  father]  tlirough  the  day,  indul^r. 
ing  the  appetite  of  the  hour ;  and  sometimes  he  is  lapped  in 
drink  and  strains  of  the  flute  ;  then  he  is  for  total  abstinence, 
and  tries  to  get  thin  ;  then,  again,  he  is  at  gymnastics  ;  some- 
times idling  and  neglecting  everything,  then  once  more  living 
the  life  of  a  philosopher  ;  often  he  is  at  politics,  and  starts  to 
his  feet  and  says  and  does  anything  that  may  turn  up ;  and, 
if  he  is  emulous  of  any  one  who  is  a  warrior,  off  he  is  in  that 
direction,  or  of  men  of  business,  once  more  in  that.     His  life 
has  neither  order  nor  law ;  and  this  is  the  way  of  him  —  this 
he  terms  joy  and  freedom  and  happiness.  —  Admirably,  said 
Glaucon,have  you  described  the  life  of  a  '  man  of  freedom.' "  ^ 
Indeed,  this  is  an  admirable  picture,  true  to  life,  the  model 
for  which   it  would  not  be  hard  to  find   even  among  us. 
The  son  of  the  "  oligarchical "  money-making  father,  loving 
"democratic"  liberty  and   sport,   enjoying  the  life   of  the 
metropolis,   is   evidently   a   peculiar  product  of    the   times. 
Prince  Bismarck  once  declared   in  the  Reichstag  that  no 
one   was   rated   highly   in    Germany  who  did   not  have   an 

*  [Plato's  Republic,  561  B  ;  Jowett's  translation.  —  Tr  ] 


532 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE  ECONOMIC  LIFE 


633 


honorable  calling.  I  am  afraid  this  judgment  expresses  the 
opinion  of  an  older  generation  rather  than  of  ours.  At  any 
rate,  the  view  is  becoming  very  popular  of  late  that  the 
calling  of  the  capitalist  {Rentier)  is  the  most  genteel  of  all, 
and  everybody  seems  to  agree  that  his  life  is,  to  speak  with 
Plato,  joyful  and  free  and  happy. 

Of  course,  this  is  a  mistake.    For  man  was  not  designed 
by  nature  merely  to  enjoy,  but  to  work  and  acquire.     How- 
ever plausible  it  may  at  first   sight  appear,  the  attempt  to 
live  a  life  of  enjoyment  merely,  has  invariably  failed.    Toil 
and   pleasure,  that  is   an   old   law   of  nature;  without  the 
former  we  cannot  obtain  the  latter.     Whoever  possesses  the 
freedom   which  goes  with   wealth,  of  choosing  any   calling, 
and  chooses  none  at  all,  but  releases  himself  from  all  obli- 
gations, undoubtedly  chooses  the  very  worst :  nothing  causes 
more  anxiety  in  the  long  run  than  the  thought  of  how  to 
spend  the  long  weary  days.     If  ever  the  proverb  which  con- 
nects the  words  choice  and  torture  ^  was  true,  it  is  true  here. 
We  observe  this  in  spoilt  children :  they  pick  up  everything, 
they   try   everything,  and   throw   everything   away,  only   to 
desire  something  else ;  and  when  they  get  that,  they  throw 
it  away  again,  and  again  wish  for  something  new ;   and  so, 
constantly  desiring  the  other  thing,  they  are  the  unhappiest, 
most   discontented,   and    contrary   creatures   in   the    world. 
Those  who  make  idleness  the  business  of  their  lives  experi- 
ence the  same  thing ;  they  take  up  one  thing  after  another, 
and  then  abandon  it  again,  and  thus  become  the  victims  of 
the   professional   disease   of    the   idler,   tedium,  Langeweile, 
ennui.     Restlessly  they   toss  about   and   make   all  kinds  of 
desperate  attempts  to  get  rid  of  the  trouble :  they  try  amuse- 
ments, games,  love-affairs,  and   sports,  they  take  to  drink, 
form  societies,  travel,  enter  politics,  speculate  on  the  stock 
exchange,  until  at  last  they  are  exhausted  and  sick  of  life. 

1  [Wer  die  Wahl  hat,  hat  die  Qual.  (Literally :  He  that  has  the  choice  has  the 
torture,  i.  e.,  Choosing  is  difficult.)  —  Tr.] 


2.  Not  only  do  we  owe  it  to  ourselves  to  pursue  a  serious 
calling  but  likewise  to  society  at  large.  The  man  who  refuses 
to  work  in  some  way  or  other  lives  at  others'  expense. 
This  is  no  less  true  of  one  who  idly  spends  his  inheritance 
than  of  the  professional  beggar  or  thief.  From  the  legal 
point  of  view  the  former  consumes  what  belongs  to  him  and 
does  no  wrong ;  from  the  moral  standpoint,  however,  —  that 
is,  in  reality, —  he  accepts  the  products  of  others'  labor  with- 
out making  any  return ;  he  lives  as  a  parasite  at  the  table  of 
the  people,  without  helping  to  defray  the  costs. 

It  was  formerly  customary  for  philosophers  to  apply  the 
principle  of  the  tacit  contract  in  the  social  sciences.  John 
Locke  endeavors  to  base  upon  it  the  income  which  the  land- 
lord derives  from  his  rents.  After  deducing  the  right  of 
property  in  a  thing  from  the  labor  by  which  it  is  acquired 
or  produced,  he  asks :  How  does  it  happen  that  any  one 
possesses  more  land  than  he  can  cultivate  himself?  He 
finds  that  the  thing  can  be  justified  only  by  the  consent  of 
the  people;  that  this  was  given,  tacitly,  of  course,  by  the 
introduction  of  an  invention  which  enabled  an  individual  to 
obtain  the  revenue  of  more  land  than  he  could  cultivate, 
that  is,  by  the  introduction  of  money.  An  indirect  accumu- 
lation and  hoarding  of  products  beyond  the  amount  needed 
for  self-consumption  is  made  possible  by  converting  them 
into  money.  But  inasmuch  as  money  possesses  a  conven- 
tional value  only,  society  has,  by  adopting  the  invention, 
tacitly  given  its  consent  to  the  consequences  thereof. 

But  to  this  (somewhat  imaginary)  contract,  we  might  con- 
tinue, society  has,  likewise  tacitly,  added  a  clause:  it  shall 
be  valid  only  on  condition  that  the  person  who  thus  becomes 
possessed  of  wealth  shall  make  some  return  for  the  surplus 
which  he  acquires  with  the  tacit  consent  of  society.  A  con- 
tract assumes  that  some  return  be  made,  otherwise  it  is  a 
donation ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  society 
intended  to  donate  anything  to  any  one,  nor  has  society  any 


534 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


right  to  do  so,  at  least  if  future  generations  are  to  bear  the 
burden.     The  individual  may  make  such  a  return  by  assum- 
ing public  responsibilities:  say  by  leading  and  representing 
his  people  in  peace  and  in  war,  by  serving  as  a  judge  or 
legislator,  by  performing  the  duties  of  the  priestly  calling, 
or  by  administering  the  spiritual  possessions  of  a  nation  in 
science  and  in  art.    And  it  may  still  be  regarded  as  such  a 
return  to  systematize  and  guide  economic  production,  nay 
even  to  influence  consumption   in   a  manner  conducive  to 
welfare,  by  example  and  encouragement,  by  public  gener- 
osity and  private  beneficence.  —  During  the  time  when  the 
nobility  and  clergy  still  were  an  active  power  in  the  body 
politic,  they   so   conceived   and    performed  their  functions. 
The  man  who  does  nothing  ignores  the  obligations  tacitly 
assumed  by  accepting  property,  and,  therefore,  has  no  right 
to  it,  from  the  moral  point  of  view.    The  pure  capitalist 
(unless  he  be  an  emeritus')  is  a  thief.     The  people  fully  ap- 
preciate this  fact ;  and  evidently  the  law  against  usury,  estab- 
lished  by  the  old  church,  was  based  upon  some  such  feeling ; 
whoever  lives  without  working  and  consumes  inherited  wealth, 
lives  upon  the  products  of  others,  for  money,  as  Aristotle  says, 

bears  no  fruit. 

The  law  does  not  execute  the  judgment  of  morals,  it  does 
not  repudiate  ownership  in  property  when  no  return  is  made, 
or  in  case  of  misuse,  and  it  is  probably  well  that  it  does 
not.  For  it  would  not  only  be  impossible  to  formulate  the 
necessary  rules  and  to  enforce  them,  but  there  would  arise  a 
feeling  of  insecurity  in  reference  to  property  which  would 
carry  greater  evils  in  its  train  than  the  most  flagrant  abuse  of 
property-rights  in  particular  instances  could  effect.  In  a 
certain  sense,  however,  history  realizes  the  judgment  of  mor- 
ality. Whenever  the  nobility  and  clergy  renounced  their 
obligations  and  merely  retained  the  corresponding  privileges 
as  an  inalienable  right,  things  went  along  in  this  way  for  a 
while,  but  the  day  of  reckoning  came  at  last,  and  they  were 


THE  ECONOMIC   LIFE 


535 


cast  off  from  the  social  body  as  useless  members  or  as  harm- 
ful parasites.  Thus  history  pronounced  sentence  upon  the 
French  nobilitv  in  the  French  revolution ;  and  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century  condemned  the  clergy, 
who  had  proved  false  to  their  trust.  History  will  not  hold  the 
capitalist  more  sacred  than  the  nobility  and  the  clergy. 

It  is  furthermore  worthy  of  note  that,  with  the  progress  of 
history,  society  is  to  a  greater  and  greater  extent  changing 
the  tacit  contract  into  an  explicit  one,  by  transferring  the 
aforesaid  functions,  which  were  originally  performed  by  the 
wealthy  without  direct  emolument,  in  honorary  positions,  to 
appointed  and  salaried  officials.  Appointed  and  salaried  min- 
isters and  privy  counsellors,  officers  and  judges,  are  now 
expressly  commissioned  to  discharge  the  duties  which,  in  the 
Middle  Ages  as  well  as  during  antiquity,  were  the  prerogatives 
and  duties  of  the  great  families.  Even  the  economic  functions 
are  beginning  to  be  separated  from  possession.  The  great 
landowner  transfers  the  cares  of  administration  to  the  tenant ; 
in  the  great  industrial  enterprises  of  modern  times  salaried 
employees  relieve  the  capitalist  of  all  work ;  the  owner 
becomes  an  annuitant.  It  is  evident  that  this  state  of  affairs 
diminishes  the  teleological  necessity  of  ownership  in  land  and 
capital,  and  correspondingly  affects  the  stability  of  the  insti- 
tution. Things  which  are  no  longer  rooted  in  the  life-condi- 
tions of  society  perish.  Let  us  suppose  that  several  thousand 
families  in  Germany  should  gain  possession  of  all  the  pro- 
perty, so  that  all  the  others  would  be  forced  to  live  upon  the 
product  of  their  labor,  while  the  former  merely  consumed  their 
rents.  What  happened  to  the  French  nobility  a  hundred  years 
ago  would  obviously  happen  to  these  capitalists.  Are  we  on 
the  eve  of  a  new  great  judgment-day  of  history  ?  Are  the  days 
of  the  bourgeoisie  numbered  ?  An  evil  presentiment  seems  to 
have  taken  hold  of  society.  It  is  certain  that  a  social  revolu- 
tion would  not  come  upon  us  as  unexpectedly  as  in  1789. 
But  perhaps  this  is  a  sign  that  it  is  not  so  near  at  hand :  the 


536 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


judgment-day  of  history  always  seems  to  steal  upon  us  una- 
wares, like  the  thief  in  the  night.  One  thing,  however,  is 
plain :  whoever  consumes  rents  without  making  some  return 
or  other,  is  hastening  the  coming  of  the  judgment.  The 
eighth  commandment  is  never  broken  with  impunity.  The 
law,  however.  Thou  shalt  not  steal,  is  merely  the  negative 
formula  of  the  positive  command :  "  By  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
shalt  thou  eat  bread." 

3.  Let  us  cast  a  glance  at  the  other  side  of  economic  life, 
at  the  question  of  consumption}  The  virtue  peculiar  to  this 
field  is  the  virtue  of  frugality^  or  economy^  the  capacity  to 
manage  one's  affairs  according  to  one's  income  as  well  as 
according  to  the  needs  and  obligations  which  grow  out  of 
individual  conditions  and  social  rank.  This  virtue,  too,  we 
may  define,  following  the  Aristotelian  principle,  as  a  mean 
between  two  faults  or  vices,  greed  and  prodigality.  The  miser 
saves  where  he  ought  to  spend,  the  spendthrift  spends  lavishly 
where  he  ought  to  save.  The  good  manager  is  distinguished 
from  the  prodigal  by  the  virtue  of  frugality,  from  the  miser 
by  the  virtue  which  Kant  calls  liheralitas  moralis  (in  opposi- 
tion to  liheralitas  sumptuosa')  :  he  lives  decently  himself,  and 
is  generous  to  others  who  need  his  help. 

Of  the  two  vices,  avarice  is  the  more  disgraceful,  extrava- 
gance the  more  dangerous.  Greed  characterizes  a  base  nature. 
The  soul  in  which  it  has  taken  root  withers  and  dies  ;  all  higher 
aspirations  disappear.  The  miser  at  last  begrudges  himself 
and  others  all  that  is  good.  Extravagance,  on  the  other  hand, 
may  exist  in  connection  with  grand  aspirations.  It  is  closely 
allied  to  a  much  admired  virtue,  generosity.  The  spendthrift 
always  regards  himself  as  a  liberal  man,  and  is  likewise 
praised  as  such  by  those  who  profit  by  his  extravagance. 
Avarice,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  one  to  sing  its  praises ;  nay, 
even  the  virtue  of  which  it  is  a  degenerate  form,  frugality, 
finds  few  admirers,  especially  when  practised  by  princes  and 

1  [Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  IV.  — Tr.] 


THE   ECONOMIC   LIFE 


637 


great  lords.  All  lackeys,  big  and  little,  whose  expectations  are 
not  realized,  show  their  gratitude  by  reviling  the  frugal  giver. 
Generosity,  however,  even  when  practised  at  others'  expense, 
makes  a  good  impression  upon  all,  even  upon  those  who  bear 
the  loss.  For  this  reason  prodigality  is  a  tempting  vice, 
and  in  avarice  there  is  nothing  seductive ;  indeed  it  is  strange 
that  avarice  should  exist  at  all.  And  this  also  explains  the 
well-known  fact  that  greed  is  confined  almost  entirely  to  old 
age.  Old  men  become  indifferent  to  opinions  and  appear- 
ances;  experience  shows  that  the  impoverished  spendthrift 
becomes  an  object  of  ridicule  to  his  former  friends  and  ad- 
mirers ;  hence  it  is  not  the  man  who  has  wasted  his  substance, 
but  the  man  who  still  has  his  money  in  his  pocket  that  is  well 
thought  of  in  the  long  run.  Besides,  all  desires  diminish  as 
the  capacity  for  enjoyment  becomes  weaker  in  old  age,  while 
the  abstract  desire  for  possession  continues  strong  to  the  end. 
Hence,  we  might,  perhaps,  regard  this  process  as  a  strategy 
of  nature  to  transmit  the  products  of  the  parent  generation 
to  its  successors. 

Avarice,  therefore,  debasing  though  it  be,  is  not  altogether 
injurious  in  its  effects.  The  consequences  of  extravagance, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  absolutely  destructive  to  individual 
as  well  as  to  social  life.  The  first  consequence  of  extrava- 
gance is  a  lack  of  means  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the 
resulting  need  of  exercising  strict  economy  in  the  wrong 
place.  What  the  wife  wastes  on  dress  and  show  must  be 
made  up  in  the  home  and  on  the  table.  What  is  spent  on 
receptions  and  sports,  on  horses  and  dogs,  is  deducted  from 
the  household  allowance.  Still  more  often  there  is  not 
money  enough  to  meet  legitimate  expenses :  the  servants 
are  not  properly  fed,  niggardly  wages  are  paid,  public  en- 
terprises make  vain  appeals  for  aid,  contributions  to  com- 
munity and  state  are  made  as  small  as  possible  and  given 
reluctantly ;  —  we  invariably  think  of  the  noblesse  oblige  at 
the  wrong  time.    And  just  as  extravagance  leads  to  false 


f 


538 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE  ECONOMIC  LIFE 


539 


economy,  it  leads  to  improper  methods  of  acquisition.  The 
landowner  fleeces  his  tenants  and  day  laborers,  the  prince 
his  subjects,  the  physician  his  patients,  the  lawyer  his  clients, 
the  gentleman  of  leisure  takes  to  gambling,  the  merchant 
speculates  on  the  exchange,  the  tradesman  adulterates  his 
goods,  the  official  accepts  bribes  or  fawns  upon  his  superiors 
for  promotion  or  an  increase  in  salary,  the  courtier  begs  for 
pensions  and  presents,  the  author  and  the  scholar  cater  to  the 
popular  tastes,  the  artist  tickles  the  palate  of  the  money-bag ; 
money  must  be  made,  money  at  any  price,  even  at  the  price  of 
freedom  and  honor,  body  and  soul !  There  is  no  joking  when 
it  comes  to  money  matters,  said  a  well-known  financier ;  in 
money  matters  most  people  also  lose  their  pride.  When  it 
comes  to  fees,  the  process  described  by  the  proverb  in  refer- 
ence to  thieves  is  reversed ;  here  the  big  ones  are  accepted 
and  the  little  ones  rejected  with  scorn.  Money  has  no 
smell.  The  maxim  reaches  farther  than  one  would  imagine ; 
even  the  most "  respectable  "  classes  act  upon  it.  How  ready 
many  rich  people  are  to  shift  the  public  burdens  upon  the 
poor  man,  the  new  assessment-lists  for  the  income-tax  have 
recently  shown  in  mortifying  figures. 

But,  it  is  contended,  when  a  man  has  means  he  surely  ought 
not  to  be  blamed  for  spending  them;  he  causes  money  to 
circulate  among  the  people.  How  many  busy  hands  receive 
employment  and  earn  money  through  a  ball  or  a  masquerade  ! 
—  This  is  the  popular  view,  but  it  is  superficial.  Would  these 
hands  remain  idle  if  there  were  no  demand  for  costumes? 
Of  course,  now  that  these  costumers  and  their  train  are 
here,  such  entertainments  must  be  given  to  keep  them 
alive.  But  would  they  be  here  if  there  were  no  such  de- 
mand? Apparently  not;  the  demand  creates  the  supply. 
Consequently,  would  the  individuals  who  now  depend  upon 
such  orders  have  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  ?  Apparently  not ; 
for  instead  of  ball  dresses  for  the  baronesses  of  finance  they 
would  now  be  making  cotton  clothes.     The  effect,  therefore, 


of  this  method  of  making  money  circulate  among  the  people 
is  simply  to  divert  production  from  the  manufacture  of 
commodities  intended  for  general  use  to  the  manufacture  of 
luxuries.  When  a  great  lord  keeps  ten  servants  and  twenty 
fancy  horses,  he  consumes  what  these  consume,  and  when  he 
transforms  a  square  mile  of  farmland  into  a  game  preserve, 
he  practically  enjoys  the  grain  formerly  harvested  on  this 
field,  in  the  form  of  the  pleasures  which  he  derives  from  the 
chase. 

This,  of  course,  by  no  means  settles  the  question  whether 
such  a  diversion  of  production  may  not  be  good  for  those 
directly  concerned  as  well  as  for  the  community.  Everything 
will  depend  upon  tlie  value  these  luxuries  have,  not  merely  for 
the  person  directly  enjoying  them,  but  also  for  the  community. 
Whoever  believes  that  the  life  of  a  people  is  enriched  and 
ennobled  by  balls  and  parties  and  artistic  dinners,  must  praise 
those  who  arrange  them  for  turning  national  production  into 
these  channels.  Whoever  thinks  differently  will  not  place 
the  same  estimate  upon  the  services  of  these  persons.  It 
is  to  be  observed,  in  this  connection,  that  it  is  a  difficult 
matter  to  judge  of  the  value  of  products  which  do  not  satisfy 
average  needs.  The  Parthenon  and  its  sculptures,  the  fes- 
tivals for  which  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  composed  their 
tragedies,  the  mediaeval  cathedrals  with  their  decorations  and 
utensils,  —  these,  too,  are  luxuries,  and  presumably,  fault- 
finders were  not  lacking;  surely  not  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Religion  does  not  require  such  worldly  pomp,  thought  the 
evangelical  brothers,  and  how  much  misery  and  want  might 
have  been  alleviated  with  the  money  thus  expended  !  Yet 
we  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  the  money  was  well  spent 
and  that  a  higher  purpose  was  realized  in  this  way  than  if 
it  had  been  used  in  clothing  and  feeding  the  poor.  All,  with 
the  exception  of  those  to  whom  they  gave  offence,  enjoyed 
these  works ;  then,  too,  they  stimulated  the  arts,  which  in 
turn  developed  architecture  and  manufacture,  thereby  bene- 


540 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


THE  ECONOMIC  LIFE 


541 


I 

1 


fiting  even  the  poorest.  Similarly,  we  are  not  to  blame  a 
great  lord  for  building  grand  and  beautiful  houses,  and  fur- 
nishing them  splendidly ;  by  laying  out  a  park  he  may  be 
putting  his  land  to  the  best  possible  use,  even  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  community.  And  who  would  be  narrow- 
hearted  enough  to  object  to  the  care  and  money  expended 
upon  beautiful  and  enjoyable  social  entertainments  of  a 
grand  character  ?  There  are  diversities  of  gifts :  this  truth 
will  hold  even  against  a  morose  Puritanism.^ 

4.  The  most  favorable  condition  for  the  development  of 
the  economic  virtues,  is,  as  the  old  Greek  sages  already 
declared,  the  possession  of  moderate  means;  wealth  (^Wohl- 
stand)  our  language  significantly  calls  it.  Pleasure  in 
acquisition  and  possession,  efficient  work,  and  moderation  in 
the  use  of  commodities,  are  most  common  in  the  middle 
classes.  The  "  too  much  "  and  the  "  too  little  "  are  equally 
dangerous.  Riches  are  dangerous  in  that  they  tend, to  en- 
courage idleness,  arrogance,  ostentation,  and  extravagance. 
Excess,  however,  begets  sorrow  and  ruin.  Especially  dan- 
gerous is  sudden  wealth  not  acquired  through  labor.  The 
money  won  in  lotteries  and  stock  speculations  usually  soon 
goes  the  way  it  came  ;  not,  however,  without  first  ruining 
the  life  of  the  lucky  winner.  Inherited  possessions  are  not 
so  dangerous.  A  family  that  has  been  long  accustomed  to 
certain  conditions  of  life  develops  the  power  to  resist  the 
temptations  of  riches ;  the  man  who  inherits  the  wealth  of 
his  ancestors  in  a  certain  measure  inherits  their  sense  of 
duty  and  honor.  The  feeling  that  he  is  destined  to  do 
great  things  serves  to  counteract  the  empty  feeling  of  power 
which  easily  turns  the  head  of  the  nouveau  riche. 

Poverty  is  equally  unfavorable  to  the  development  of  eco- 
nomic virtues.  Inherited  poverty  deadens  the  sense  of  owner- 
ship. Children  reared  in  utterly  destitute  families,  in  families 
living  from  hand  to  mouth,  fail  to  experience  the  pleasures  of 

1  [Runze,  §  59.  —  Tr.] 


acquisition  and  ownership.  The  desire  to  have  more  than  is 
required  to  satisfy  daily  needs  does  not  manifest  itself,  or  at 
least  remains  an  idle  wish,  and  never  grows  into  a  strong  voli- 
tion. When  this  state  becomes  a  habit,  the  individual  be- 
comes improvident  and  reckless,  giving  no  heed  to  the  morrow. 
Poverty  tends  to  blunt  the  sense  of  ownership  in  another  sense  : 
it  weakens  the  person's  ability  to  discriminate  between  mine 
and  thine.  When  a  man  possesses  property  himself,  he  appre- 
ciates the  sacredness  of  property.  When  he  looks  upon  the  in- 
stitution of  property  merely  as  a  barrier,  as  a  protection  against 
him  and  not  also  for  him,  he  naturally  feels  less  hesitancy  in 
overleaping  it  than  when  he  has  been  accustomed  from  child- 
hood to  regard  it  as  a  means  of  self-defence.  So  poverty  easily 
becomes  a  school  for  theft,  for  which  the  pupil  is  prepared  by 
mendicancy  and  the  tipping-system  {Trinkg elder).  Beggary 
robs  a  man  of  his  economic  honor,  which  depends  upon  his 
economic  independence,  his  ability  to  help  himself  by  his  own 
efforts.  The  custom  of  accepting  tips  or  fees  is  the  first,  ap- 
parently quite  innocent,  form  of  beggary.  That  it,  too,  lessens 
a  man's  economic  honor  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the 
offer  of  a  tip  may  under  certain  circumstances  be  a  gross 
insult.^ 

The  possession  of  moderate  means  secures  the  individual 
against  temptations  in  either  direction.     It  saves  him  from 

1  On  the  effects  of  the  habitual  acceptance  of  tips  see  the  interesting  essay 
of  R.  V.  Jhering  Uher  das  Trinkgeld.  The  relation  between  theft  and  poverty 
is  shown  by  criminal  statistics.  H.  v.  Valentini  (Das  Verbrecherthum  im  Preuss. 
Staat,  1869)  constantly  refers  to  it.  He  gives  a  table  (p.  22),  in  which  the 
Prussian  provinces  are  arranged  according  to  the  frequency  of  grand  larceny 
(during  the  sixties)  as  follows  :  For  every  100,000  inhabitants  there  were  sen- 
tenced to  the  penitentiary  for  grand  larceny  :  in  the  Rhineland,  5.59  ;  in  West- 
phalia, 9.21;  in  Saxony,  18.33;  in  Pomerania,  20.57;  in  Prussia,  24.69;  in 
Brandenburg,  2&.27  ;  in  Posen,  32.89 ;  in  Silesia,  36.94.  On  page  56  we  find  a 
table  showing  the  distribution  of  landed  property :  a  small  piece  of  land  (as 
much  as  30  acres)  is  owned  by  4  inhabitants  in  the  Rhineland ;  by  8  in  West- 
phalia; 11  in  Saxony;  14  in  Silesia;  22  in  Brandenburg  and  Pomerania;  25 
in  Posen  ;  30  in  Prussia.  Theft,  as  we  see,  follows  large  landownership  like  its 
shadow.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  German  capital  has  received  and  still  receives 
most  of  its  increase  to  the  lower  classes  of  population  from  the  Eastern  provinces. 


it 

■':t 


542 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


the  slavery  which  is  the  companion  of  poverty ;  it  gives  him 
the  free  choice  of  a  profession,  without  tempting  him  not  to 
follow  any  calling  whatever.  It  develops  in  him  a  desire  for 
possession,  as  opposed  to  the  proletarian  supineness  of  poverty ; 
it  arouses  a  pleasure  in  ownership,  as  opposed  to  the  arrogance 
pf  satiety,  which  follows  upon  superabundance.  It  is  plain, 
the  conditions  in  this  regard  are  not  favorable  in  our  age. 
The  marvellous  growth  of  industry  and  commerce  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  concomitant  development  of  specula- 
tion and  the  stock  exchange  system,  have  enabled  particular 
individuals  to  accumulate  enormous  wealth,  not  infrequently 
without  any  merit  of  their  own,  which  now  seeks  in  vain  for 
rational  employment.  The  consequence  is  senseless  extrav- 
agance, a  great  greed  for  gain,  and  an  insane  mania  for  gamb- 
ling. Universal  poverty  and  proletarian  misery  form  the 
obverse  of  the  picture. 


CHAPTER  V 

TE[E  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE  i 

1.  By  culture  we  mean  the  perfect  development  of  spiritual 
life.  It  consists  in  the  capacity,  acquired  by  instruction  and 
practice,  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  spiritual  life,  first  of 
a  people,  and  ultimately  of  humanity. 

We  note  as  the  two  essential  phases  in  the  spiritual  life 
of  a  people,  knowledge  and  the  creative  fancy^  philosophy 
and  science,  art  and  poetry.  Culture,  therefore,  means  for 
the  individual  the  development  of  the  intellect  to  the  end 
that  he  may  know  the  truth,  and  of  the  senses  and  the 
imagination,  that  he  may  comprehend  and  enjoy  the  beauti- 
ful.—  The  detailed  treatment  of  this  subject  belongs  to  peda- 
gogy. I  shall  merely  give  the  outlines,  and  consider  knowledge 
first. 

Knowledge  has  a  double  function.  The  intellect  is,  first, 
the  organ  of  the  will ;  its  function  is  to  adjust  the  latter  to 
its  environment.  As  was  indicated  before,  the  feeling  of 
pleasure  and  pain  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  primitive 
form  of  knowledge.  The  senses,  which  are  developed  from 
the  general  animal  sensibility,  enable  the  animal  to  under- 
stand its  more  remote  surroundings  and  to  adapt  itself 
to  what  is  useful  or  harmful.  Sensibility  develops  into  intel- 
ligence, which  may  be  defined,  in  a  general  way,  as  the 
faculty  to  know  from  what  is  given  that  which  is  not  given. 

1  [Porter,  Part  H.,  ch.  IV. ;  Hoffding,  pp.  313-554 ;  also  XXI. ;  Spencer, 
Ethics  of  Individual  Life,  ch.  VL;  Runze,  §§  44  f . ;  Smvth,  Part  II.,  ch.  II.,  pp. 
356-371;  Wundt,  Part  IV.,  ch.  1,  4;  Seth,  Part  IL,  ch.  L  (IL) ;  Oettingen, 
Moralstatistik,  Part  II.,  ch.  II.  —  Tr.] 


544 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


645 


It  employs  the  data  of  sense-perception  as  signs,  and  infers 
from  these  that  which  is  not  yet  perceived,  especially  the 
future,  the  remote  in  time. 

The  intellect,  which  already  plays  an  important  role  in 
the  higher  animals,  reaches  its    highest  perfection   in  man 
in  conceptual  knowledge.      The  latter  differs  from  sensuous 
knowledge  in  that  it  is  based  upon  the  analysis  of  percepts. 
The  animal  combines  percepts  by  association,  and  so  makes 
a  kind  of    inference  from  certain  perception-complexes  to 
future  occurrences.     But  the  animal   does  not,  so  far  as  we 
may  conjecture,  succeed  in  resolving  the  percepts  into  their 
particular  elements ;  it  does  not  distinguish,  in  fire,  between 
the  wood  and  the  process  of  combustion,  in  a  moving  object 
between  the   persistent  body  and  the  temporary  movement. 
Man,  however,  does  this,  and  so,  on  the  basis  of  analysis, 
forms  the  synthetic  judgments :  the  body  moves,  the  wood 
burns.     The  animal  does  not  distinguish  the  direction  and 
the  velocity  of  the  movement,  nor  the  size  and  the  weight 
of  the  body.      By  making  such  an  analysis,  man  succeeds 
in  discovering  the  ultimate  and  constant  relations  between 
the  simple    components ;   these  are   expressed  in    the    for- 
mulae which  we  call  laws  of  nature.     The  knowledge  of  them 
gives  him  theoretical  and  practical  control  of  the  nature  of 
things :  he  is  able  not  only  to  foresee  the  complex  processes, 
which  the  animal  too,  may,  in  a  certain  measure,  foresee,  but 
also  to  explain  them,  that  is,  to   deduce  them  from  their 
causes,  and,  in  so  far  as  the   causes  are  in  his  power,  to 
produce  them.  —  Thus,  the  intellect  has  become  the  powerful 
instrument  by  which   man   has  made  the  earth  his  servant. 
He  has  tamed  the  animals  or   exterminated   them,   he  has 
selected  and  formed  the  plants  which  cover  the  earth,  he  has 
compelled  the  forces  of  nature  to  do  his  bidding.     Knowledge 
is  power.^ 

1  [Compare  with  this  James's  admirable  chapter  on  Reasoning  {Psychology 
Vol.IL).  — Tr.] 


But  knowledge  also  has  another,  an  immediate  value.  In 
the  animal  it  is  absolutely  subservient  to  practical  needs,  in 
man  it  becomes  free ;  he  takes  a  disinterested  interest  in  con- 
templation, so  to  speak.  This  holds  even  of  sense-perception. 
The  eye  finds  pleasure  in  forms  and  colors,  the  ear,  in  notes 
and  their  rhythmical  musical  succession ;  hence  arise  music 
and  painting.  From  the  same  pleasure  in  the  contemplation 
of  things  springs  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  purely  contem- 
plative knowledge.  This  is  the  original  meaning  of  the  word 
among  the  Greeks  ;  the  Socratic  school,  in  which  it  was  first 
used  as  a  technical  term,  distinguishes  philosophy,  as  purely 
theoretical  knowledge,  from  technical  knowledge,  to  which 
also  Sophistic  dialectics  and  rhetoric  belong.  In  this  most  gen- 
eral sense  philosophy  is  a  universal  human  function  ;  mythology 
is  its  most  primitive  form ;  it  universally  arises  as  an  attempt 
to  comprehend  the  whole  of  things  into  one  conception  ;  and  to 
interpret  the  meaning  of  the  universe  and  especially  of  life.^ 

This  estimate  of  knowledge  will  furnish  us   with  a  stan- 
dard by  which  to  measure  the  value  of  particular  forms  of 
cognition.    We  shall  say  that  a  particular  truth  has  value 
in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  increase  our  practical  power,  and  our 
theoretical   insight    into    the  nature    of  things  in  general. 
Knowledge  which  has  no  value  in  either  sense,  which  accom- 
plishes nothing  for  our  technics  or  for  our  philosophy,  has 
no  value  whatever.     The  proposition :    All  knowledge    has 
absolute  value  as  such,  or :  Everything  that  is,  is  worthy  of 
being  known,  is  not  infrequently  proclaimed  in  our  age  as 
the  highest  principle  of  scientific  research.    I  cannot  help 
regarding  this   as  a  meaningless  assertion  —  one,  however, 
that  is  accepted  by  many  as  a  convenient  means  of  silencing 
the  question  concerning  the  value  of  particular  investigations. 
Apparently,  however,  the  true  scientist  does  not  adhere  to 
this  principle.     In  spite  of  the  assertion  that  everything  that 

^  The  reader  will  find  an  elaborate  account  of  these  topics  in  my  Introduction 
to  Philosophy,  5th  ed.  1898.     [Thilly's  tr.] 

35 


1l 

t 

'ii, 


Ir'j 


546 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


exists  deserves  to  be  known,  no  historian  has  ever  undertaken 
to  ascertain  what  such  and  such  a  celebrity  or  "  obscurity  " 
has  had  for  breakfast  or  dinner  every  day  of  his  life,  and  no 
one  has  yet  volunteered  to  attack  the  problem  once  suggested 
by  Jean   Paul  — the  history  and   system  of  typographical 
errors  since  the  invention  of  printing.    Nor  has  any  scientist 
ever  attempted  to  count  the  grains  of  sand  on  the  seashore, 
and  to  describe  the  forms  of  the  separate  grains.     Why  not  ? 
Surely  because  healthy  common-sense,  if  not  scientific  insight, 
instinctively  recognizes  the  uselessness  of  such  a  task.  —  It 
must  be  added,  however,  that   we    cannot    always    tell    in 
advance  whether  an    investigation  will  yield  results  which 
may  have  some  bearing  on  knowledge  in  either  form  or  not. 
In   no   case,   perhaps,   has  healthy   common-sense   betrayed 
such    shortsightedness   as   in    its    repudiation    of    scientific 
research  as  useless  trifling  or  curiosity.     Bacon  ridiculed  a 
contemporary   for   thinking  it  worth   while  to  experiment 
with  magnetic  phenomena.     Socrates    rejected  all    physical 
investigations  as  idle  speculation:  to  know  oneself  he  con- 
sidered the  most  essential,  worthy,  and  possible  task.     No  one 
any  longer  holds  these  views  in  physics ;   everybody  knows 
that  physics  has  achieved  the  greatest  results  for  our  philoso- 
phical conceptions  of  the  universe  as  well  as  for  practice,  in 
consequence  of  its  maxim  that  regards  nothing  as  too  trivial. 
Healthy   common-sense  may  perhaps  feel   more  inclined  at 
present  to  find  fault  with  philological,  historical,  and  psycho- 
logical investigations;  and,  indeed,  who  can   help  thinking 
that,  beside  the  grain,  a  great  deal  of  chaff  is  being  gath- 
ered in  these  fields  as  a  precious  harvest  ?    Still,  we  must 
not  forget  that  a  fragment  of  knowledge  which  seemed  rather 
insignificant  at   first  has  often   gained,  later  on,  an  impor- 
tance not  dreamed  of.    The  first  attempts  in  comparative  lan- 
guage may  perhaps  have  seemed  more  like  useless  trifles  than 
serious  work ;  and  yet  what  an  extraordinary  influence  they 
have  had  upon  our  modern  historical  world-view !    Hence,  it  is 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


547 


by  no  means  necessary  that  every  investigation  should  justify 
its  utility  in  advance ;  the  principle  holds  nevertheless  :  that 
knowledge  has  value  only  in  so  far  as  it  increases  and  pro- 
motes our  practical  power  over  things  or  our  philosophical 
knowledge  of  the  world. 

2.  The  same  principle  applies  wlien  it  comes  to  judging 
the  value  of  knowledge  for  the  individual.  Cognitions  have 
no  absolute  value  for  the  individual,  they  have  value  in  so  far 
as  they  do  something  for  him,  either  by  solving  his  practical 
life-problems,  or  by  assisting  him  in  his  philosophical  reflec- 
tions,  or,  in  other  words,  in  so  far  as  they  make  him  wiser  and 
more  prudent.  Knowledge  which  does  neither  one  nor  the 
other,  which  does  not  make  him  either  more  efficient  in  his 
calling  or  more  skilful  in  contemplation,  has  no  value  for  him 
whatever.  If  we  call  the  knowledge  upon  which  professional 
efficiency  is  based  professional  or  technical  education^  and  that 
upon  which  rests  the  ability  to  contemplate,  to  participate  in 
philosophy,  literature,  and  art,  general  culture^  we  may 
say:  Only  such  knowledge  is  valuable  to  the  individual  as 
either  serves  to  give  him  professional  culture,  or  intensifies 
his  general  culture,  or  does  both. 

And  this  would  give  us  a  principle  for  the  guidance  of 
instruction:  Everybody  ought  to  acquire  such  knowledge  as 
will  assist  him,  on  the  one  hand,  in  following  his  special  call- 
ing to  the   best  possible   advantage,  and,  on  the   other,  in 
understanding  the  world  from  his  position  in  life.     It  is  ob- 
vious that   the   first  demand,  the   demand   for  professional 
culture,   has   a  different   meaning   for  different   individuals. 
Nor  does  the  second  demand  mean  the  same  for  all.    Speaking 
abstractly,  it  is  true,  all  have  the  same  end  in  view  :  general 
culture  or  the  faculty  to  participate  in  the  active  spiritual  life 
of  the  people ;  and  this  will  ultimately  depend  upon  the  same 
two  things  :  upon  the  knowledge  of  nature,  or  cosmology,  and 
the  knowledge  of  history  or  spiritual  life  ;  for  the  former  gives 
us  an  idea  of  the  general  form  of  reality,  while  the  latter  sup- 


648 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE   AND  CULTURE 


549 


plies  us  with  the  ultimate  and  universal  content  by  which  to 
interpret  the  meaning  of  reality.  But  the  ways  and  means  by 
which  individuals  obtain  these  and  the  form  in  which  they 
possess  them,  differ  according  to  the  capacities  and  inclina- 
tions of  the  individuals  themselves  as  well  as  according  to 
their  external  conditions  and  opportunities  in  life. 

These  differences  make  necessary  different  schools  and 
courses  of  study.  Three  fundamental  forms  appear:  the 
primary/  school  (  Volksschule),  the  secondary  school  (Mittelschule), 
and  the  university  (^HochschuW).  The  object  of  the  primary 
school  is  to  educate  the  great  masses  of  the  population  in  a 
manner  suitable  to  their  needs.  The  curriculum  must  keep 
in  view  the  fact  that,  owing  to  the  economic  conditions  of 
their  parents,  the  pupils  must  complete  the  course  at  the  age 
of  fourteen,  and  are  destined  to  enter  callings  which  chiefly 
require  manual  labor.  The  course  of  study  therefore  should 
consist  mainly  in  the  acquisition  of  the  elementary  branches, 
reading,  writing,  drawing,  and  arithmetic,  and  also  in  attain- 
ing a  general  notion  of  the  natural  and  historical  surroundings. 
The  purpose  of  the  secondary  or  intermediate  school  is  to 
educate  those  pupils  the  economic  condition  of  whose  parents 
permits  a  somewhat  longer  attendance,  and  whose  prospective 
position  in  life  will  require  work  of  a  higher  character,  pre- 
supposing greater  knowledge  and  skill,  and  affording  more 
leisure  and  greater  opportunities  for  free  action.  To  the  sub- 
jects taught  in  the  primary  grades,  which  are,  of  course,  in- 
tensified and  elaborated  here,  are  added  especially  foreign 
languages  and  mathematics,  the  latter  the  instrument  of  the 
natural  sciences  and  technics,  the  former  the  medium  of  inter- 
national intercourse,  commercial  as  well  as  spiritual,  and  of 
an  intensified  humanistic-historical  culture.  The  university^ 
finally,  has  as  its  aim  the  extension  of  general  scientific  and 
philosophical  knowledge,  and  also,  particularly,  the  acquisition 
of  scientific-technical  education,  which  is  the  precondition  of 
professional  activity. 


That  school  will  be  the  best  for  the  individual  which,  on 
the  one  hand,  is  suited  to  his  individual  talents  and  tastes, 
and,  on  the  other,  to  his  future  calling  and  position  in  life. 
By  no  means  can  we  admit  that  the  more  elaborate  and  ad- 
vanced instruction  is  desirable  for  all,  and  that  it  is  only  from 
necessity  that  pupils  content  themselves  with  the  elementary 
form.     There  are  people  who,  in  their  zeal  for  equality,  are 
inclined  to  demand  the  same  schools  and  the  same  education 
for  everybody.     We   may  say    to  such :    It  is  not  wise  to 
give  a  man  advanced  scientific  instruction  whose  future  call- 
ing will  make  it  necessary  for  him  to  do  manual  labor,  even 
though  he  possess  intellectual  talents,  provided  he  cannot  at 
the  same  time  enter  a  learned  profession.     Nor  is  it  wise  to 
whip  the  son  of  a  banker  or  privy   councillor  through  the 
gymnasium  and  the  examinations,  regardless  of  the  protests 
of  his  nature,  which  unfortunately  is  a  much  more  common 
case    than    the    other.      The     principle    holds     absolutely : 
Knowledge  which  the  individual  cannot  utilize,  either  on 
account  of  natural  incapacity,  or  in  consequence  of  his  exter- 
nal position,  is  of  absolutely  no  value  to  him. 

Yes,  we  may  go  further  and  say  it  is  an  evil.     This  be- 
comes self-evident  when  the  individual  is  lacking  in  talent. 
To  know  too  much  for  his  capacity  makes  a  man  not  wiser, 
but  more  stupid.     We  must  discriminate  between  stupidity 
and  ignorance.     Ignorance  is  a  lack  of  knowledge,  stupidity 
is  a  lack  of  judgment,  and  may  go  with  great  learning,  nay,  it 
may,  under  certain  circumstances,  be  due  to  this.     A  good 
anecdote  is  told  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.    A  young  man  once 
applied  to  him  for  an  office.     After  conversing  with  him  for 
a  while,  the  Duke  refused  his  application,  adding:  "  Sir,  you 
have  received  too  much  education  for  your  brains."     I  fear 
that  if  the  Duke  of  Wellington  could  attend  our  examinations, 
he  would  not  infrequently  make  the  same  discovery.     Nowa- 
days offices  depend  upon  examinations,  and  state  examina- 
tions naturally  take  account  only  of  the  information  which 


560 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


661 


i". 


I,  .If] 

V.  0 


■A 


an   applicant  possesses.     Knowledge   has   thus   acquired   a 
purely  accidental  and  external  value  for  the  possessor  as  a 
social  being  —  a  value  which  is  entirely  independent  of  its  real 
value  to  him  as  a  rational  being.     Hence   it  happens  that 
many  learn  many  things  which  do  not  fit  in  with  their  natural 
capacities  and  inclinations.     The  result  is,  not  only  does  the 
acquisition  of  such  knowledge  become  a  torture  to  both  teach- 
ers and  pupils,  but  injury  is  done  to  what  natural  intelligence 
the  latter  may  possess.     The  judgment  is  confused  and  over- 
burdened by  such  undigested  knowledge.     It  very  often  hap- 
pens  in   an   examination   that  a  question  addressed  to  the 
intellect  is  answered  by  the  memory ;  instead  of  a  judgment 
we  are  offered  a  memorized  formula  or  fact.     It  is  often  im- 
possible to  induce  the  candidate  to  use  his  intellect ;  it  has 
become  rudimentary  in  consequence  of  constant  study.    It  is 
to  be  feared  that  such  a  person  will  act  precisely  in  the 
same  way  when  he  enters  the  practical  world ;  the  case  de- 
mands that  he  observe  and  understand  a  fact,  that  he  con- 
sider what  is  possible  and  necessary ;  instead  of  opening  his 
eyes  and  using  his  intellect,  our  learned  friend  soon  begins  to 
ransack  his  memory  for  formulae  and  facts,  which  he  has  for- 
merly learned  off  by  heart ;  he  involuntarily  falls  into  the  ex- 
amination habit  for  which  he  has  been  trained,  — he  does  not 
know  what  else  to  do  with  his  intellect.    Bluntschli  expresses 
the  opinion,  somewhere  in  his  Autobiography,  that  this  not 
infrequentlv  happens  to  our  jurists :  by  constantly  memoriz- 
ing  and  reciting  formulae  they  entirely  lose  their  ability  to 
look  at  things  in  a  natural  way.    That  is  most  likely  what 
the  German  proverb  means  which  calls  the  learned  the  per- 
verted  idle  Gelehrten  die  Verkehrten).     And  Huxley  means 
the  same  thing  when  he  says  in  one  of  his  Addresses:^  "  In 
my  belief,  stupidity,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,^f  non  nascitur, 
and  is  developed  bv  a  long  process  of  parental  and  pedagogic 
repression  of  the  natural  intellectual  appetites,  accompanied 

1  [Science  and  Education,  p.  128.] 


by  a  persistent  attempt  to  create  artificial  ones  for  food  which 
is  not  only  tasteless,  but  essentially  indigestible."  And  be- 
side the  stupidity  thus  acquired,  another  quality  is  acquired, 
and  that  is  pride,  haughtiness.  Over-education  not  only  dwarfs 
the  head  but  also  the  heart.  Knowledge  puffeth  up,  says  the 
apostle  ;  this  is  particularly  true  of  knowledge  of  which  the 
possessor  can  make  no  legitimate  use.  Not  useful,  but  use- 
less things  are  employed  for  show.  The  useful  finds  satis- 
faction in  being  put  to  its  right  use,  while  superfluous  pomp 
invariably  strives  to  make  a  display  of  itself.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  useless  learning :  the  possessor  endeavors  to 
parade  it,  so  that  he  may  at  least  get  something  out  of  it. 
The  educated  young  lady  or  her  governess  cannot  rest  until 
she  has  "  shown  off "  her  French,  so  that  people  may  praise 
her  culture ;  the  Untersekundaner  who  has  fretted  long  over 
his  Latin  exercises  until  he  finally  gets  his  Uinjahrigen- 
schein^  is  now  not  infrequently  plagued  with  the  Latin-pride 
for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

But  also  where  there  is  a  conflict  between  his  education  and 
position  in  life,  where  his  calling  and  social  rank  prevent  him 
from  utilizing  his  school  education,  the  possessor  of  the  knowl- 
edge is  placed  in  a  false  position,  and  his  learning  is  not  a 
blessing.  He  makes  claims  upon  life  which  cannot  be  satis- 
fied, he  cannot  find  pleasure  in  the  work  which  his  calling  re- 
quires of  him,  he  does  not  feel  at  ease  in  his  surroundings. 
The  "  Latin  peasant  "  {der  lateinische  Bauer)  is  a  well-known 
character ;  in  his  own  sphere  he  is  regarded  with  a  mixture  of 
awe  and  contempt,  and  his  attitude  toward  the  world  is  one  of 
discontent ;  he  feels  out  of  place.  Such  moods  are  quite  com- 
mon in  our  day.  We  meet  persons  who  have  been  "  de- 
classed "  by  their  education,  —  among  men  as  well  as  among 
women.     They  are  all  alike  in  that  they  consider  what  life 

^  [The  "  one-year-certificate,"  which  entitles  the  holder  to  serve  in  the  German 
army  for  one  year  as  a  volunteer,  instead  of  as  a  conscript,  who  must  serve  three 
years.  —  Tit.] 


■!•'  1 


41 


,1 


552 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


553 


■1 


demands  of  them  beneath  their  dignity,  and  therefore  suffer 
from  habitual  ill-temper.  In  our  higher  schools  a  certain  num- 
ber of  scholarships  are  regularly  awarded,  and  in  the  larger 
cities  they  are  often  given  to  poor  and  talented  boys  from  the 
Volksschulen.  The  object  is  doubtless  a  commendable  one ; 
but  it  is  not  so  certain  that  the  results  are  beneficial  to  the 
boys.  Even  in  the  school  itself  they  often  feel  out  of  place  ; 
they  do  not  find  the  necessary  quiet  and  sympathy  at  home, 
they  do  not  receive  the  assistance  which  they  occasion- 
ally need,  they  must  do  without  school  books,  and  many 
of  them  are  soon  compelled,  perhaps  after  having  obtained 
the  Mnjahrigenschein,  to  leave  school  for  good.  I  fear 
the  education  thus  acquired  and  the  Einjdhrigemchein  often 
prove  to  be  possessions  of  negative  value.  Others  endeavor 
to  fight  their  way  through,  to  graduate  from  the  school 
and  university  —  unusual  bodily  and  mental  powers  of  resist- 
ance are  nowadays  required  to  overcome  the  countless  pri- 
vations and  obstacles  —  and  after  all  the  examinations  have 
been  passed  and  the  ship  seems  to  be  safe  in  the  harbor,  it 
frequently  happens  that  the  struggler  is  shipwrecked  after  all. 
Would  it  not  have  been  wiser  to  relinquish  the  proffered  place 
in  the  gymnasium  ?  To  be  sure,  it  pains  a  man  of  unusual 
talent  to  find  himself  handicapped  in  his  attempt  to  get  an  edu- 
cation and  forced  to  do  mechanical  labor  for  life.  And  it  is  a 
loss  to  the  nation  as  well,  in  several  respects :  talents  are 
wasted,  which  nature  does  not  too  freely  bestow,  and  entire 
spheres  of  society  are  cut  off  from  the  spiritual  culture  of  the 
people,  nay  become  hostile  to  it  when  it  becomes  utterly  unat- 
tainable. It  would  be  to  the  interest  of  the  individual  as 
well  as  of  society  to  return  to  the  old  practice  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  to  educate  men  of  pronounced  ability  at 
public  expense  and  for  the  public  service. 

These  thoughts  are  summed  up  in  a  remark  of  Goethe's : 
"  Man  is  born  for  limited  surroundings ;  he  is  capable  of 
grasping  simple,  near,  and  definite  ends,  and  he  accustoms 


himself  to  employ  the  means  close  at  hand.  So  soon,  how- 
ever, as  it  comes  to  more  remote  ends,  he  neither  knows  what 
he  wants  nor  what  he  ought  to  do.  It  is  always  a  misfortune 
for  him  when  he  is  induced  to  strive  after  something  with  which 
he  cannot  come  into  active  relations^  And  the  words  of  Faust, 
who  groans  beneath  the  load  of  scholastic  learning,  ought  to 
be  inscribed  above  the  doors  of  our  schoolhouses,  to  serve  as 
a  warning  to  our  parents  when  they  bring  their  children  to 
school :  "  Was  man  nicht  nutzt  ist  eine  schwere  Last." 

For  there  has  hardly  been  an  age  in  the  history  of  our 
people  when  the  evil  of  over-education  prevailed  to  such  an 
extent  as  at  present.  The  reasons  are  plain  enough ;  there 
never  was  a  time  when  education  was  held  in  such  his:h 
esteem  as  now.  Formerly  men  were  divided  into  clergy  and 
laymen,  believers  and  unbelievers,  nobles  and  citizens ;  now 
we  classify  them  as  educated  and  uneducated.  When  we 
desire  to  recommend  a  young  man,  we  say  he  has  a  fine  and 
many-sided  education  ;  when  we  wish  to  express  our  low 
opinion  of  a  woman,  we  sum  it  all  up  in  the  statement  that  she 
is  a  thoroughly  uncultured  person,  whereupon  everybody  knows 
what  to  think  of  her.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  whole 
world  is  running  after  culture,  that  our  fathers  and  mothers 
desire  nothing  more  earnestly  than  to  enable  their  sons  and 
daughters  to  get  an  education :  with  an  education  they  can 
become  everything,  without  an  education  they  are  nothing. 
The  demand  for  education  creates  the  supply  of  the  means 
and  institutions  of  education,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  our 
age.  Illustrated  and  non-illustrated  text-books  of  education, 
of  scientific  and  historical  education,  large  and  small  educa- 
tional dictionaries  and  lexicons,  institutes  of  all  kinds  for 
the  higher  education  of  daughters  and  sons,  intermediate 
schools  and  gymnasia,  humanistic  and  realistic,  —  all  these 
enterprises  have  for  the  last  fifty  years  increased  with  remark- 
able rapidity,  and  still  have  been  unable  to  satisfy  the  grow- 
ing demand :  indeed,  the  institutions  in  which  culture,  male 


'4: 


■  i;; 


554  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

and  female,  is  manufactured,  are  usually  so  overcrowded  that 
applications  for  admission  must  be  made  years  in  advance. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  in  this  mad  race,  not  a  few  obtam  an 
education  which  is  not  adapted  to  their  personal  and  social 
conditions,  and  makes  them  unhappy.  The  educated  female 
has  long  been  the  domestic  affliction  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Of  recent  years,  we  have  also  had  thrust  upon  us  the 
man  with  a  high  school  and  university  education,  who  cannot 
earn  his  bread  and  butter,  because  of  this  very  education. 
In  acquiring  it  he  has  neglected  to  learn  some  honest  trade, 
and  even  if  he  still  had  the  power  and  the  desire  to  make  up 
for  lost  time,  his  education  would  not  permit  it,  for  by  using 
his  hands  to  work  he  would  necessarily  forfeit  his  honor  as  an 

educated  man. 

Will  there  be  a  natural  reaction  for  the  cure  of  this  disease? 
We  might  suppose  so.     Many  signs  seem  to  indicate  that  edu- 
cation  is  about  to  fall  in  value.     It  strikes  me  that  the  word 
is  beginning  to  take  on  a  suspicious  flavor,  similar  to  that  of 
the  word  enlightenment  (^Aufkldrung)  at  the  opening  of  the 
century.     This    invariably   happens  when  a  thing    becomes 
too  common.      We  are  reminded  of   the  barber's  appren- 
tice who    did  not    believe  in  God,  even  if  he  was  only  a 
barber's  apprentice.     *' Culture"  CBildung)  has,  as  it  were, 
come  to  take  the  place  of  "  enlightenment."     The  word  first 
came  into  vogue  toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  in  the 
neo-humanistic   circles    that    gathered   around    Herder  and 
Goethe.     The  full  term  was:  Bildung  zur  Humanit'dt ;  it  sig- 
nified the  fashioning  of  the  inner  man   after  the   Hellenic 
pattern,  as  distinguished  from  the  model  of  the  French  cour- 
tier on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  orthodoxy  and  pietism  on 
the  other  ;  compared  with  these,  the  Hellenic  ideal  of  culture 
seemed  to  represent  the  free  and  natural  education  of  the  human 
being.     How  the  word  has   degenerated   since   those  days! 
What  is  meant  at  present  when  the  word  culture  {Bildung)  is 
mentioned  in  a  conversation  ?    If  I  can  trust  my  philological 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


555 


instincts,  I  should  define  it  about  as  follows :  He  is  cultured 
or  educated  who  can  talk  upon  all  topics  in  which  society  is 
interested,  about  Goethe  and  Schiller,  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo,  Plato  and  Kant.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  he 
feels  what  these  men  felt  or  understands  their  thoughts, 
whether  he  has  caught  a  breath  of  their  spirit  or  not,  so 
long  as  he  can  talk  about  them.  But  in  case  he  is  unfamiliar 
with  these  names,  as  was  the  honest  Hermann  with  Tamino 
and  Pamina,  then,  whatever  else  he  may  be  and  have,  feel  and 
think,  he  is  lacking  in  culture.  And  there  is  still  another 
way  by  which  we  can  tell  whether  a  man  is  educated,  at 
least  in  Germany ;  namely,  by  his  ability  to  use  foreign  terms. 
Foreign  terms  are  borrowed  from  foreign  languages,  and  so 
by  using  them  we  give  people  to  understand  that  we  do  not 
belong  to  the  rabble  who  speak  only  the  common  vernacular, 
but  to  the  privileged  classes,  who  could  also  speak  Latin  or 
French  if  they  chose. 

We  often  hear  complaints  of  the  prevalence  of  semi-refine- 
ment  or  half-culture  (^Halbbildung)^  and  lay  the  blame  on  the 
Realschule  or  the  Uinjahf^igenschein,  or  what  not.  I  should 
say  that  semi-education  was  precisely  what  we  popularly  mean 
by  culture:  the  foreign  terms,  a  smattering  of  everything, 
and  the  ability  to  talk  on  any  subject.  Semi-education  means 
the  possession  of  all  sorts  of  knowledge  which  has  not  been 
digested  and  converted  into  a  living  force.  The  etymology  of 
the  word  seems  to  suggest  the  same  thought :  Bildung  signifies 
a  process  of  organic  formation,  a  process  in  which  substances 
are  taken  up  and  assimilated  through  the  inner  formal  prin- 
ciple. Halhhildung  would  then  mean  Bildung  which  has  not 
been  completed ;  in  which  substances  have  been  received,  but 
have  not  been  assimilated  and  converted  into  organic  forces, 
and  thus  lie  in  memory  as  undigested  masses,  and  as  foreign 
bodies  overburden  organic  life.  Hence  half-education  may  be 
acquired  in  gymnasia  and  universities  as  well  as  in  the  ReaU 
schulen  and  young  ladies'  seminaries.     And  the  reverse  may 


656 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE   AND   CULTURE 


557 


i 

■S 


,9. 


also  happen :  a  plain  man  who  has  never  gone  further  than 
the  Volksschule  may  have  a  complete  and  thorough  education ; 
if  his  inner  life  is  consistently  and  harmoniously  developed,  if 
he  has  digested  and,  as  it  were,  converted  into  organic  sub- 
stance and  living  force  whatever  opinions  and  experiences 
he  has  acquired  at  school  and  in  the  world,  he  is  a  well- 
educated  man.  Not  the  mass  of  material,  but  the  inner  form 
is  what  makes  education.  Matter  without  form  produces 
semi-education,  over-education,  pseudo-education,  or  whatever 
we  may  call  this  degeneration  of  the  soul. 

3.  Art,  like  philosophy,  is  also  based,  partially  at  least,  on 
pure  contemplation.  If  play  is,  in  distinction  from  work,  the 
free  exercise  of  powers,  and  not  a  means  to  an  external  end, 
while  in  work  an  external  effect,  or  product,  is  desired,  art,  as 
well  as  philosophy,  belongs  in  the  category  of  play.  All  occu- 
pation with  the  fine  arts  is  playful  or  purposeless  exercise  of 
sensuous-spiritual  powers.  When  we  contemplate  a  statue  or 
a  painting,  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  learn  anything,  as  is  the 
case  when  we  study  a  drawing  in  a  physical  or  technological 
text-book.  We  desire  nothing  but  to  exercise  our  perceptive 
and  presentative  faculties  without  having  an  end  in  view. 
When  we  listen  to  a  song  or  hear  some  one  "  play  "  an  instru- 
ment, we  simply  desire  to  follow  the  movement  of  the  notes- 
when  we  are  reading  a  poem  or  seeing  a  "  play,"  we  abandon 
ourselves  to  the  "  play  "  of  the  imagination  which  the  poet 

sets  a-going. 

The  production  of  works  of  art  is  nowadays,  it  is  true, 
not  regarded  as  play  but  as  work,  and  it  is  apt  to  be  so  in  the 
sense  that  the  aim  is  to  make  an  economic  use  of  the  product. 
In  their  origin,  however,  art  and  play  are  closely  connected 
All  peoples,  even  the  most  savage,  decorate  their  utensils . 
pots,  weapons,  and  clothes  are  covered  with  all  kinds  of  orna- 
mental  lines,  marks,  and  drawings ;  it  is  the  same  play  in- 
stinct  that  impels  the  child  to  cover  its  slate  and  the  walls  with 
figures.    Song  and  music  were  originally  connected  with  the 


dance  and  festival  plays.  The  same  impulse  to  play  created 
the  first  poems,  the  epic  narratives :  a  motley  crowd  of  charac- 
ters and  events  passing  before  the  inner  eye  of  the  singer  and 
hearer.  The  original  epic  was  actually  sung.  An  epic  has 
become  known  in  our  century  which  was  transmitted  by 
word  of  mouth,  the  Finnish  epic.  In  the  long  night  of  the 
polar  zone,  the  Finns  passed  the  time  by  reciting  rhythmical 
stories  of  the  gods  and  heroes  in  dialogue  form ;  each  in- 
dividual could  repeat  them  or  invent  new  ones  himself. 
Hence  the  peculiar  variations  in  tlie  transmission  of  the  epic. 
Among  us  the  fairy-tale  {Mdrchen)  has  been  handed  down  in 
the  same  way ;  the  infant  mind,  which  is  itself  full  of  play 
and  poetry,  preserves  this  fragment  of  living  poetry  even 
for  adults ;  or  did  preserve  it,  for  now  that  these  stories  are 
printed  and  a  dozen  new,  artificially- made  books  of  fairy- 
tales are  produced  every  Christmas,  this  last  survival  of 
living  poetry,  whose  obscurity  was  its  salvation,  is  dying  out. 
When  the  printed  fairy-tales  reach  the  last  mountain-hut, 
the  poetical  narrative  as  a  living  function  of  the  people  will 
be  a  thing  of  the  past. 

Art  is  also  partially  rooted  in  feeling  and  willing.  Every 
strong  emotion  is  accompanied  by  the  desire  to  express  and 
communicate  itself.  The  joys  and  pangs  of  love,  martial  cour- 
age and  sadness,  yearning  and  reverence,  seek  and  find  relief 
in  poetry  and  song.  By  the  rhythmical-melodious  arrange- 
ment of  words  and  notes,  the  feelings  themselves  are  aroused. 
And  so  the  will  and  the  mood  of  a  people  and  an  age  are 
expressed  and  objectified  in  the  great  creations  of  epic  and 
dramatic  poetry  as  well  as  in  the  creations  of  the  plastic  arts 
and  architecture.  Gothic  art  manifests  tlie  mood  of  tower- 
ing supernaturalism,  which  contemns  and  repels  the  earthly 
sensuous  world,  —  corporeality  with  its  pleasure  and  heavi- 
ness. In  the  Renaissance  the  opposite  mood  asserts  itself ; 
its  architecture  and  fine  arts,  its  costumes  and  house-fur- 
nishings, its  poetry  and  music,  all  of   them  express  the 


558 


DOCTRINE  OP  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL   LIFE   AND   CULTURE 


559 


11  ■, 


4 


n  ■ .  '* 


:v|. 


M^'t  'S 


mi, I 

LW',''\     I: 


determination  of  the  age  to  abandon  itself,  with  the  enthu- 
siasm and  exuberance  of  youth,  to  the  contemplation  and 
enjoyment  of  everything  charming  and  agreeable,  till  it  seems 
as  though  the  age  felt  the  need  of  making  up  for  lost 

time. 

It  is  the  highest  function  of  art  to  shape  and  express  the 
ideals  which  the  spiritual  life  of  a  nation  creates.  The  ideal 
world  reaches  its  highest  expression  in  a  supramundane- 
superhuman  world,  in  which  perfection  has  absolute  reality 
for  faith.  Thus  art  becomes  the  organ  of  religion.  Its  high- 
est function  is  to  realize  the  innermost  cravings  of  a  people, 
to  contemplate  its  ideas  of  perfection  in  concrete  forms.  So 
the  plastic  arts  produced  concrete  representations  of  the 
Greek  gods,  —  glorious  figures  in  which  the  Greek's  ideals 
of  human  culture  were  made  visible  to  him.  Similarly  Greek 
poetry  gave  to  the  people  in  its  epics  and  its  dramas  living  pic- 
tures of  divine  and  human  excellences,  such  as  courage,  loyalty, 
devotion,  magnanimity,  prudence,  wisdom,  piety.  —  Christian 
art,  too,  has  performed  the  same  necessary  function  of  convert- 
ing the  realm  of  faith  into  a  world  of  concrete  intuitions.  The 
entire  mediaeval  art,  architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  music, 
and  poetry,  had  for  its  sole  object  the  presentation  of  the 
world  of  Christian  faith,  in  the  form  which  this  had  assumed 
in  the  Germanic  mind,  to  the  senses  and  the  entire  man.i 

We  may  therefore  describe  the  effect  of  art  upon  the  soul  as 

1  A.  Durer  so  conceives  the  function  of  art :  "The  art  of  painting  is  employed 
in  the  service  of  the  church,  and  so  manifests  the  passion  of  Christ  and  many  other 
good  examples,  also  preserves  the  forms  of  men  after  their  death."  (See  Thaus- 
ing,  A.  Durer.)  Milton  has  the  same  conception  of  the  art  of  poetry :  "  Poetical 
powers  are  the  inspired  gift  of  God  rarely  bestowed  ...  in  every  nation,  and  are 
of  power,  beside  the  office  of  a  pulpit,  to  imbreed  and  cherish  in  a  great  people 
the  seeds  of  virtue  and  public  civility,  to  allay  the  perturbation  of  the  mind,  and 
set  the  affections  in  right  tune ;  to  celebrate  in  glorious  and  lofty  hymns  the 
throne  and  equipage  of  God's  almightiness,  and  what  he  works  and  what  he 
suffers  to  be  wrought  with  high  providence  in  his  church ;  to  sing  victorioua 
agonies  of  martyrs  and  saints,  the  deeds  and  triumphs  of  just  and  pious  nations, 
doing  valiantly  through  faith  a,2;ainst  the  enemies  of  Christ ;  to  deplore  the  gen- 
eral relapses  of  kingdoms  and  states  from  justice  and  God's  true  worship." 


follows :  (1)  It  exercises  our  sensuous-spiritual  powers  and  so 
fills  our  leisure  moments  with  the  purest  and  most  beautiful 
recreation  and  pleasure.  (2)  It  satisfies  and  quiets  the  crav- 
ings of  the  emotions  to  express  themselves,  by  providing  them 
with  the  necessary  stimulus  and  affording  relief.  (3)  It  raises 
the  soul  above  the  world  of  work  and  need,  struggle  and 
misery,  to  a  world  of  freedom  and  ideals,  and  purifies  it  from 
the  dust  of  base  feelings  and  passions  with  which  the  affairs 
of  daily  life  cover  it.  The  inner  uniformity  and  harmony 
which  constitutes  the  essence  of  all  art  also  brings  uniformity 
and  harmony  into  the  soul.  Finally,  (4)  it  binds  together 
and  unites  the  members  of  the  nation,  nay,  all  the  members 
of  a  sphere  of  civilization  ;  all  those  who  have  the  same  faith 
and  the  same  ideals.  Opinions  and  interests  differ  and  pro- 
duce discord ;  art  presents  in  sensuous  symbols  the  ideals 
which  are  cherished  by  all,  and  so  arouses  the  feeling  that  all 
are,  in  the  last  analysis,  of  the  same  mind,  that  all  recognize 
and  adore  the  same  ultimate  and  highest  things.  Hence  the 
union  of  art  with  the  public  festival.  In  the  festival  the 
inner  unity  of  the  members  of  a  people  seeks  to  reveal  itself : 
art  is  appealed  to  to  satisfy  this  craving  of  the  popular  con- 
sciousness. Art  fills  all  hearts  with  the  same  feelings,  and 
makes  the  popular  soul  conscious  of  its  unity.  Whatever  else 
may  divide  the  people  is  for  the  moment  forgotten,  and  the 
identity  of  the  innermost  sentiments  becomes  a  source  of 
pure  joy. 

4.  If  this  is  a  correct  description  of  the  nature  and  effect 
of  art,  it  follows  that  it  is  a  universally  human  function. 
Art  is  not  something  peculiar  to  a  few  nations  and  to  a 
few  individuals  among  them,  but  all  nations  have  an  art  to 
express  their  emotions,  as  they  have  a  language  to  express 
their  ideas.  And  just  as  all  the  members  of  a  people  partici- 
pate in  its  language,  though  not  equally,  so  all  of  them,  in 
a  measure,  participate  in  its  art. 

When  we  compare  this  conception  of  art,  which  seems  aa- 


560 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL   LIFE   AND   CULTURE 


661 


equately  to  express  its  real  function  in  the  life  of  a  people,  with 
its  present  position  in  our  national  life,  we  readily  observe  a 
discrepancy  between  the  definition  and  the  facts.  When  we 
speak  of  art  in  our  days,  we  are  not  apt  to  mean  by  it  some- 
thing that  is  intended  for  all,  or  that  has  an  essential  bearing 
on  one's  life.  Art  is  mostly  regarded  as  a  kind  of  luxury, 
which  only  the  few  can  enjoy  whom  fortune  has  given  more 
freedom  and  leisure  ;  the  masses,  the  uneducated,  must  work 
and  content  themselves  with  an  occasional  solid  pleasure. 
That  is  the  tacitly  assumed  and  often  also  openly  expressed 
opinion  of  many  educated  persons. 

This  view,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  not  very  far  from  ex- 
pressing  the  actual  status  of  art  in  our  civilization.      The 
sculptures  and  paintings  which  we  exhibit  in  our  galleries  and 
museums,  in  our  art  exhibitions  and  salons,  are,  of  course,  not 
intended  for  the  masses ;  indeed,  the  people  do  not  visit  them, 
and  when  they  chance  to  do  so,  they  feel  out  of  place,  as  their 
embarrassed  movements  and  looks  indicate.     Nay,  it  not  in- 
frequently happens  that  a  person  reared  in  simple  surround- 
ings and  removed  from  the  influences  of  culture,  suffers  from 
another  kind  of  embarrassment  in  the  presence  of  such  works 
of  art,  the   embarrassment   of  shame.     He   sees  all  kinds 
of  naked  forms  around  him,  classical  nakedness,  Renaissance 
nakedness,  and  modern  nakedness,  so  that  the  unaccustomed 
eye  wanders  about  seeking  for  a  place  upon  whicli  to  rest. 
So,  too,  the  great  masses  of  people  have  only  a  modest  share 
in   what  we  call   our  national  literature.     Song  and  music 
are  most  enjoyed  by  the  multitude,  by  which  I   do  not,  of 
course,  mean  arias  and  symphonies.     Moreover,  a  closer  in- 
vestigation would,  I  believe,  show  that  art  does  not  even  con- 
stitute a  very  essential  element  in  the  lives  of  many  of  our 
educated  men.     It  is  largely  merely  a  matter  of  show  ;  a  few 
paintings  and  engravings,  the  usual  gilt-edged  editions  in  the 
glass  case,  and  the  inevitable  piano  belong  to  the  furniture 
of  a  "  refined  "  home ;  similarly  a  smattering  of  the  history 


of  literature   and  art  forms  a  part  of  the  furniture  of  a 
cultivated  mind. 

How  shall  we  account  for  this  discrepancy  between  the 
reality  and  the  ideal  ?  Some  may,  perhaps,  feel  inclined  to 
say:  Well,  this  is  the  inevitable  obverse  of  higher  civiliza- 
tion ;  the  number  of  persons  capable  of  keeping  pace  with 
progress  will  naturally  diminish,  the  greater  the  demands 
that  are  made.  All  progress  depends  upon  the  division  of 
labor  and  differentiation ;  and  the  splitting  up  of  the  people 
into  the  educated  classes  and  the  masses  is  a  necessary 
consequence. 

I  cannot  convince  myself  of  the  truth  of  this  assertion.  It 
is  in  a  measure  true  of  knowledge  that  the  more  it  grows, 
the  further  it  becomes  removed  from  the  masses ;  the  pro- 
ducts of  science  are  by  their  very  nature  accessible  only  to 
the  few  persons  who  have  the  time  and  strength  for  difficult 
and  protracted  preparation.  It  seems  to  be  different,  how- 
ever, in  the  case  of  art.  Science  speaks  to  the  intellect  in 
concepts,  art  appeals  to  the  sensibility  through  percepts ;  the 
capacity  to  be  impressed  by  its  products  seems  to  be  more  a 
matter  of  natural  aptitude  than  a  specific  accomplishment  to 
be  acquired  by  practice,  although  this  aptitude  may  be  de- 
veloped and  intensified  by  exercise.  If  art  expresses  the  sum 
total  of  the  emotions  of  a  people,  it  must  surely  have  some- 
thing to  say  to  every  child  of  the  people.  Not  everybody  can 
be  a  creative  artist  nor  an  expert  art  critic,  but  all,  we  should 
imagine,  ought  to  be  capable  of  enjoying  art,  although  in 
different  degrees. 

Historical  facts  also  seem  to  bear  out  this  view.  Greek  art, 
at  its  climax,  was,  as  everybody  knows,  by  no  means  inferior 
to  the  art  of  the  present,  either  in  content  or  in  form.  Never- 
theless, it  was  not  intended  for  a  small  circle  of  educated 
persons :  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  did  not  compose  their 
dramas,  and   Demosthenes   did   not  write  his  orations,  for 

college  graduates,  but  for  the  entire  community.     So,  too, 

36 


562 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 


563 


**.''■'; 


the  Athenian  citizens  must  have  understood  and  appreciated  the 
value  of  the  works  of  architecture  and  sculpture  which  adorned 
the  city  in  the  fifth  century ;  indeed,  these  could  not  have  arisen 
had  not  the  citizens  first  convinced  themselves  of  their  value. 
And  if  reference  be  made  to  the  slaves  who  enabled  the 
citizens  to  enjoy  leisure   and   culture,  I  call    attention   to 
mediaeval  art.    It,  too,  possessed  a  large  degree  of  creative 
power  and  sense  of  form,  wealth  and  depth  of  content.     It, 
too,  did  not  work  for  a  small  circle  of  educated  persons,  but 
for  the  entire  people.     Mediaeval  art  served  the  church ;  it 
was  the  essential  object  of  architecture  and  sculpture,  paint- 
ing and  music,  to  make  the  service  solemn  and  dignified. 
The  church  and  the  divine  worship,  the  sacraments  and  the  ser- 
mon, were  intended  for  all ;  likewise  the  arts  which  labored  for 
them.    Who  would  have  built  the  countless  houses  of  worship 
which  filled  the  mediaeval  cities,  had  not  their  value  been 
universally  recognized?    They  were  not  built  by  the  state 
with  the   money   of    the    tax-payers,  as  the   result  of    an 
abstract  consideration  that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  the 
church  or  for  art,  but  by  corporations  and  citizens,  for  the 
glory  of  God,  for  their  own  pleasure  and  edification,  and  as 
a  monument    to    their    artistic    and    self-sacrificing    piety. 
Where  should  we  find  the  courage  and  the  means  to  con- 
struct such  buildings  to-day  ?    Why,  for  decades  and  decades 
we  have  been  taking  up  collection  after  collection  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  have  been  appealing 
to  the  gambling  instinct,  which  has  been  deprived  of  other 
forms  of  satisfaction,  and  yet  we  hardly  succeed  in  raking 
together  the  sums  necessary  to  complete  the  structures  which 
a  single  city  or  corporation  undertook  to  build  in  those  days. 
So,  too,  the  countless  paintings  and  sculptures  which  adorned 
the  interior  of  the  churches  appealed  to  all.     Each  one  saw 
before  him  artistic  representations  of  the  sacred  stories  and 
personages  that  lived  in   every  heart,  and  was  inspired  by 
them  to  joyful  veneration. 


Is  this  not  an  artistic  effect?  I  believe  it  is  the  high- 
est, for  ultimately  the  artist  must  care  more  for  reverent 
contemplation  than  for  hasty  criticism.  True,  it  was  not  the 
artistic  form,  the  coloring  and  drawing,  which  constituted  the 
chief  source  of  enjoyment,  but  the  thing  represented.  But, 
perhaps  the  artist  himself  believed  that  the  painting  existed 
for  the  sake  of  its  content  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
his  technical  skill.  The  latter  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  as  the 
oft  quoted  maxim  "  art  for  art's  sake  "  would  have  it,  but  an 
instrument  in  the  service  of  an  idea.  Would  a  mediaeval 
painter  have  been  willing  to  exchange  those  who  looked  at  his 
pictures  for  those  who  visit  our  art  galleries  ?  It  is  doubtful ; 
what  sensible  artist  would  not  prefer  to  have,  instead  of  pro- 
fessional and  non-professional  art  critics,  who  gabble  about 
coloring  and  the  art  of  handling  the  pencil,  about  subject  and 
composition,  people  who  simply  enjoy  first  what  the  pictures 
represent  and  then  their  truth  and  beauty. 

I  do  not  therefore  believe  that  the  discrepancy  between  art 
and  our  actual  life  is  due  to  the  high  state  of  perfection  which 
our  civilization  and  art  have  reached.  It  is  due,  rather,  to  a 
peculiar  defect  in  our  spiritual  life  :  we  are  lacking  in  national 
feeling  ( Volkstumlichkeif). 

The  reason  for  this  is  that  our  literature  and  art  are  not, 
like  those  of  the  Greeks,  the  product  of  a  steady  national 
growth.  Twice  has  our  inner  life  been  seriously  interrupted 
in  its  development,  first  by  our  conversion  to  Christianity,  then 
by  our  conversion  to  antiquity ;  the  former  marks  the  begin- 
ing  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  latter  of  the  modern  times.  In 
each  case  we  consciously  repudiated  our  past,  we  experienced 
a  spiritual  regeneration,  so  to  speak.  At  first  our  people 
adopted  the  religion  and  civilization  of  Christianized  an- 
tiquity. The  religion  and  civilization  which  the  church 
brought  were  undoubtedly  vastly  superior  to  what  we  had  our- 
selves. Still,  the  conversion  at  the  same  time  produced  a 
great  convulsion :  a  nation  cannot  change  its  religion  as  it 


564 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


changes  its  clothes.  Religion  is  the  soul,  the  inner  life  of  a 
people,  it  permeates  everything,  its  language,  its  poetry,  its 
customs,  its  institutions,  its  ideals.  It  is  well  known  with 
what  jealous  zeal  the  new  religion  persecuted  and  exterminated 
the  old  beliefs,  the  old  sacred  customs,  the  old  poetry,  the 
old  ideals. 

The  new  religion  took  root  among  the  people ;  it  was 
grafted  upon  the  old  trunk  and  produced  vigorous  offshoots : 
the  knighthood,  with  its  curious  mixture  of  martial  courage 
and  Christian  mercy,  the  monastic  orders  with  their  equally 
remarkable  union  of  culture  and  asceticism,  the  scholastic 
philosophy  with  its  combination  of  childlike  faith  and  mascu- 
line thought,  mediaeval  art  with  its  union  of  supernatural 
content  and  sensuous  form.  But  then  came  the  second  great 
interruption,  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  the  Renais- 
sance. Here,  again,  we  notice  the  same  sudden  break  with 
the  past  as  before.  After  our  conversion  to  Christianity,  the 
past  was  repudiated  as  paganism,  and  regarded  with  abhor- 
rence ;  then  the  Middle  Ages  were  condemned  as  filthy  Gothic 
barbarism.  The  Humanists  could  not  find  terms  enough  to 
express  their  contempt  for  the  Middle  Ages :  their  language, 
their  worship,  their  art,  was  nothing  but  detestable  barbarism. 
Nay,  even  their  religion  was  not  Christianity,  but  an  idolatrous 
scandal ;  so  judged  the  Reformation,  and  joined  forces  with 
Humanism  to  destroy  the  old  forms  of  church  life.  The  fear 
of  idolatry  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  entire  sensuous  element 
in  religion,  both  on  the  mental  side  and  in  its  outward  man 
ifestation ;  and  with  the  decline  of  the  worship  of  the  saints, 
art  lost  its  true  object. 

Though  four  centuries  have  passed  since  this  second  inter- 
ruption of  our  historical  life,  its  effects  have  not  been  overcome 
as  were  those  of  the  first,  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Our  na- 
tional life  has  not  assimilated  classical  antiquity,  as  it  for- 
merly assimilated  Christian  antiquity ;  we  have  not  received 
it  into  our  flesh  and  blood  ;  all  our  people  do  not  share  in  it. 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE   AND  CULTURE 


665 


Indeed  it  is  doubtful  whether  this   can  ever  happen,  and 
whether  it  would  be  desirable.     The  civilization  of  the  Re- 
naissance has  taken  hold  of  only  a  small  fraction  of  our  pop- 
ulation, of  that  part,  namely,  which  receives  a  classical  edu- 
cation in  our  humanistic  gymnasia;  an  important  fraction, 
it  is  true,  the  destined  leaders  and  teachers  of  our  people* 
in  all  the  spheres  of  life.     But  this  group  does  not  wholly 
stand  within  the  pale  of  our  popular  life,  it  constitutes  a 
special  stratum  by  the  side  of  it,  or,  if  we  choose,  above  it : 
the  learned  class  which  is  sharply  separated  from  the  people 
by  its  so-called  classical  education.     This  chasm  between  the 
learned  and  unlearned  did  not  exist  until  the  Renaissance. 
During  the  Middle  Ages  a  distinction  was  made  between  the 
clergy  and  laymen ;  this  was  a  difference  in  education,  but  it 
was  not  great ;  the  clergy  knew  Latin,  the  language  of  the 
church,  but  their  conception  of  life   and  the  world  did  not 
differ  from  that  of  the  knight  and  the  peasant.     Besides,  ow- 
ing to  celibacy,  these  differences  in  education  did  not  become 
hereditary.     Not  until  the  sixteenth  century  was   the  line 
sharply  drawn  between  the  people  and  the  cultured  classes. 
Not  only  do  the  latter  differ  from  the  former  in  scientific  or 
technical  knowledge,  but  their  entire  conceptions  of  life  differ 
from  those  of  our  people,  and  they  are  proud  of  it.     They 
turn  to  classical  antiquity  for  what  they  cannot  find  at  home : 
the  perfect  development  of  man,  an  ideal  which  is  realized 
only  in  a  more  or  less  crippled  form  outside  of  the  ancient 
world.     The  worship  of  antiquity  has  become  something  of  a 
second  religion  with   scholars,  a  more  aristocratic  religion 
in  which  the  masses  do  not,  of  course,  participate.     This 
worship  reached  its  climax  in  the  second  Renaissance,  the 
continuation  in  the  eighteenth  century  of  the  first  Renais- 
sance, which  had  been  interrupted  by  the   great  religious 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century.     Our  gymnasia  were  re- 
established at  the  beginning  of  this  century  as  temples  of  this 
"  religion  of  the  educated,  "  Homer  being  their  sacred  book. 


666 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


What  we  call  our  national  literature  and  art  is  largely  the 
possession  of  this  group  of  the  classically  educated.  It  is  not 
rooted  in  our  popular  life,  but  in  the  classical  schools  ;  hence 
its  general  classical  character.  Our  so-called  classical  litera- 
ture, it  is  true,  no  longer  employs  the  ancient  languages,  like 
the  neo-Latin  and  neo-Greek  poetry  of  the  sixteenth  century ; 
still  it  loves  to  follow  the  old  classical  models  in  form  and 
content.  Indeed,  every  day  we  hear  the  assertion  calmly 
made  that  to  understand  our  classic  authors  the  classical  educa- 
tion which  the  gymnasium  gives  is  a  necessary  prerequisite. 
The  statement  is  perhaps  somewhat  exaggerated,  owing  to  a 
desire  of  its  defenders  to  justify  the  gymnasium,  but  who  will 
deny  that  there  is  a  germ  of  truth  in  it  ? 

The  other  arts  also  betray  classical  traits.  Take  architect- 
ure, not  to  mention  sculpture,  which  is  a  purely  exotic  growth, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  produces  portrait  statues.  Architecture 
is  not  a  product  of  the  handicraft,  but  is  learned  in  academies ; 
it  is  not  rooted  in  our  needs  and  in  our  life-conditions,  but  in 
learned  traditions.  We  arbitrarily  choose  a  certain  style,  and 
then  do  the  best  we  can  to  adapt  the  form  to  the  conditions. 
Thus  arise  those  curious  formations  which  may  be  seen  in  our 
streets,  —  pillars  of  brick  topped  with  tin  to  give  them  the  ap- 
pearance of  Corinthian  columns;  plaster-of-paris  consoles 
glued  to  wooden  cornices  apparently  to  support  them,  —  until 
they  drop  off;  buildings  which  want  to  look  like  Grecian 
temples  and  to  that  end  surround  themselves  with  columns, 
but  remembering  that  they  are  intended  for  picture  galleries^ 
insert  walls  and  windows  between  their  columns  so  that  one  half 
of  the  column  projects  from  the  masonry  —  a  miserable  sight. 
Painting  is  more  indigenous  to  the  soil ;  music,  most  of  all ; 
is  it  because  music  had  to  develop  independently,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  Greek  music  — one  is  tempted  to  say,  for- 
tunately—  was  not  preserved? 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  fault-finding  or  to  criticise  history ;  far 
from  it.     This  would  be  a  presumptuous  and  futile  undertak- 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE   AND   CULTURE 


567 


ing.  Things  are  what  they  are,  historical  things  among  the 
rest.  It  was  doubtless  impossible  for  the  German  people 
to  pursue  their  course  in  isolation,  and  I  am  also  willing  to 
believe  that  they  chose  the  best  of  all  possible  courses.  But 
our  modesty  cannot  hinder  us  from  confessing  that  our  culture, 
such  as  it  is,  though  it  be  the  product  of  the  historical  condi- 
tions of  our  people,  does  not  satisfy  all,  that  art,  especially, 
does  not  do  for  us  what  it  could  do  for  a  nation.  It  will  not 
hinder  us  from  confessing  that  this  is  not  a  pleasing  state  of 
affairs.  One  fact,  particularly,  is  plain,  that  the  life  of  the 
masses  is  impoverished  and  stunted  by  the  lack  of  beautiful 
and  elevating  pleasures.  Their  enjoyments  are  vulgar.  In 
their  work  they  are  respectable,  perhaps  also  in  their  priva- 
tions and  sufferings,  but  their  pleasures  strike  more  refined 
natures  as  repulsive  and  common.  —  But  art  itself  deteriorates 
when  it  is  not  deeply  rooted  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
When  only  the  higher  strata  of  society  cultivate  it,  it  easily 
degenerates  into  mere  finery,  into  an  object  of  luxury  and 
show,  or  sinks  to  a  still  lower  level,  and  becomes  a  pliable 
means  of  sensuous  pleasure  or  love  of  diversion,  and  the  crav- 
ing for  sensation.  Everybody  knows  from  what  miry  depths  the 
models  for  pictures  and  novels  are  occasionally  taken  in  our  age. 

Will  our  people  ever  again  possess  a  great  art,  an  art  that 
is  deeply  rooted  in  its  nature  ?  Will  it,  with  creative  power, 
evolve  from  its  innermost  essence  new  forms  and  new  objects 
of  artistic  expression  ?  Will  it  succeed  in  appropriating  such 
foreign  ingredients  as  can  be  assimilated,  and  reject  the  rest  ? 
No  one  can  tell.  One  thing  alone  we  can  perhaps  say :  if  the 
Germans  and  their  neighbors  are  destined  for  a  long  life  —  a 
matter  not  of  knowledge  but  of  faith — they  will  again  possess 
a  world  of  universally  recognized  ideals,  without  which  no 
nation  can  permanently  exist ;  and  this  world  of  ideals  will 
again  seek  for  sensuous  expression  in  works  of  art. 

What  form  this  art  of  the  future  will  take  —  it  is  not  to  be 
subservient  to  erudition  —  historical  prophecy  cannot  foretell. 


568 


DQCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


One  thing,  however,  is  certain :  the  narrowness  of  intellectual 
life,  which  is  so  favorable  to  the  development  of  the  creative 
fancy,  is  gone ;  mythology  and  legend,  whose  ideal  figures 
furnished  the  art  of  the  past  with  its  material,  will  not  return. 
Nor  will  the  new  art  thrive  upon  the  soil  of  luxury.  Goethe 
knew  what  he  was  saying  when  he  made  the  remark  which 
I  find  quoted  somewhere ;  "  I  hate  luxury,  it  destroys  the 
fancy." 


CHAPTER  VI 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONORS 


1.  The  love  of  honor  may  be  regarded  as  a  peculiar  modi- 
fication of  the  impulse  of  self-preservation ;  it  aims  at  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  self  in  consciousness,  in  our  own  consciousness 
as  well  as  in  that  of  others.  We  may  call  it  the  impulse  of 
ideal  self-preservation. 

By  honor  in  the  objective  sense  we  mean  the  opinion  which 
our  surroundings  have  of  us.  By  his  character  and  his 
acts,  every  man  arouses  sentiments  in  his  fellows  which 
represent  judgments  of  value  :  respect  and  disrespect,  admir- 
ation and  contempt,  reverence  and  aversion.  These  feelings 
express  themselves  in  judgments  and  are  influenced,  intensi- 
fied, and  harmonized  by  other  feelings,  and  thus  arises  some- 
thing like  a  general  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  particular 
individual  in  society :  this  is  his  objective  honor.  —  The 
phenomenon  is  lacking  in  animals ;  only  in  man  does  intel- 
lectual and  social  life  reach  such  a  state  of  perfection  and 
stability  as  to  make  possible  this  permanent  reflection  of  the 
individual  in  the  consciousness  of  the  whole. 

There  are  as  many  different  kinds  of  honor  as  there  are 
groups  or  sets  to  which  a  man  belongs.  As  the  member  of 
a  political  community  he  has  a  political  honor;  it  measures 
his  value  as  a  citizen.     The  different  estates  or  orders  repre- 

1  [Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  II.,  ch.  VII.,  Bk.  IV.,  chs.  VII.-X. ;  Schopenhauer, 
Parerga,  vol.  I.,  Von  dem  was  einer  vorstellt ;  Jhering,  pp.  480  ff. ;  Porter,  Part 
I.,  ch.  XV.;  Hoffding,  XI.  c;  Wundt,  I.,  ch.  III.,  3.  (c)-(e) ;  James,  Psychology/, 
ch.  X. ;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Part  II.,  ch.  IV. ;  Dorner,  pp.  384-395  ;  Runze,  §§ 
67  ff.  — Tr.] 


570 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


571 


sent  so  many  attempts  at   a  systematic  graduation  of  this 
form  of  honor.     It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  lowest 
class,  that  of  the  citizen  as  such  {Staatsbilrger),  is  not  re- 
garded as  a  real  class.     But  that  it  exists,  that  it  too  has  its 
political  honor,  is   shown  by  the  fact   that  penalties  are  in- 
flicted for  breaches  of  it  which  deprive  a  man  of  his  civil 
honorary   rights    (hurgerliche   EhrenrecUe) :  he   forfeits  all 
offices,  positions  of  trust,  titles,  decorations,  and  the  right  to 
serve  as  a  soldier,  voter,  juror,  witness,  and  guardian.     The 
political  unworthiness  of  the  individual  is  thereby  proclaimed. 
Besides  the  political  honor,  there  is  a  special  social  honor. 
Everybody   is   a   member  of  society ;  his   value   as  such  is 
measured  by  his   social   honor.     Social  rank   is   essentially 
determined  by  birth,  wealth,  economic  and  mental  achieve- 
ments.    Social  honor  invariably  seeks  to  convert  itself  into 
political  honor,  or,  rather,  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  state. 
The  state  satisfies  this  desire  by  the  bestowal  of  titles  and 
decorations.     It  makes  the  rich  merchant  a  Kommerzienrat, 
the  successful  physician  a  Sanitdtsraty  the  celebrated  scholar 
and  professor  a  G-eheimer  Regierungsrat,    No  office  goes  with 
these  titles,  they  carry  no  duties  with  them ;  the  professor 
has  no  governing  to  do,  nor  is  his  advice  ever  sought,  either 
in  public  or  private  matters.     In  the  title  the  state  simply 
recognizes  and  brings  to  public  notice  the  social  significance 
or  social  rank  of  the  recipient.     Decorations  serve  essentially 
the  same  purpose,  that  is,  they  proclaim  the  social  and  pol- 
itical rank  of  the  possessor.  —  The  title  system  is  a  product 
of  the  modern  state,  while  the  nobility  is  an  older  develop- 
ment.    The  latter  too  is  based  upon  social  distinction,  which 
in  turn  depends   upon  wealth,  birth,  and  personal  achieve- 
ments.   The  state  recognizes  this  by  the  bestowal  of  political 

privileges. 

Within  these  comprehensive  groups  there  are  narrower 
circles,  each  having  its  particular  form  of  honor :  we  speak 
of  the  honor  of  a  merchant,  the  honor  of  an  artist,  the  honor 


of  _an  ^officer,  the  honor  of  a  student,  etc.  Its  possession 
signifieslnat  the  individual  satisfies  the  special  demands 
which  are  made  upon  him  by  the  particular  set  to  which  he 
belongs. 

Collective  bodies,  too,  like  individuals  have  their  honor  :  a 
family  has  its  family  honor  among  other  families,  a  class 
among  other  classes,  a  profession  among  other  professions, 
a  nation  among  other  nations.  The  individuals  have  a  share 
in  this  collective  honor ;  let  an  Englishman's  honor  be  what 
it  may  among  Englishmen;  among  foreigners  he  has  the 
honor  of  an  Englishman  in  general.  This  collective  honor 
is  a  highly  important  factor  in  all  collective  life ;  it  firmly 
cements  the  members  of  a  community  together.  The  family 
honor  holds  the  members  of  a  family  together,  even  after 
they  have  lost  their  love  and  respect  for  each  other ;  all  of 
them  would  have  to  suffer  the  disgrace  of  a  single  member. 

2.  The  significance  of  honor  for  human  conduct  is  obvious. 
Since  increase  of  honor  produces  pleasure,  and  decrease,  pain, 
the  love  of  honor  tends  to  determine  the  will  to  seek  for 
things  which  increase  honor,  and  to  shrink  from  things  which 
diminish  it.  As  a  rule,  honor  is  increased  by  everything 
that  increases  the  power  and  influence  of  an  individual,  or,  in 
other  words,  increases  his  capacity  to  help  or  harm  others. 
We  may  mention  such  qualities  as  strength,  skill,  courage, 
military  skill ;  these  are  the  qualities  which  are  pre-eminently 
honorable  in  primitive  society :  the  fearfulness  of  a  man  as 
an  enemy  and  his  value  as  a  friend  depend  especially  upon 
these.  Then  come  wealth,  which  too  means  social  power; 
birth  and  rank,  which  give  power,  namely  through  family  con- 
nections ;  and  finally,  prudence,  knowledge  of  the  law,  and 
eloquence,  qualities  which,  with  the  progress  of  political 
development,  enable  their  possessors  to  attain  to  higher 
positions,  either  as  leaders  of  the  people  or  as  officers  of  the 
state.  The  types  depicted  in  the  Greek  epic  are  the  simplest 
examples  of  these  different  forms  of  fame  and  distinction. 


I 


672  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

Achilles  stands  for  strength  and  courage ;  Agamemnon  for 
rank  and  wealth ;  Ulysses  and  Nestor  for  prudence  and  elo- 
quence    Finally,  the  moral  excellences  also  belong,  m  a  cer- 
tain sense,  to  the  qualities  which  bring  honor  and  which  the 
love  of  honor  impels  us  to  acquire.     Intemperance,  dissipa- 
tion, and  extravagance  bring  disgrace,  at  least  after  they  have 
ruined  the  person  addicted  to  them,  for  then  the  friends  who 
once  applauded  him  forsake  him.    The  opposite  modes  of  be- 
havior, on  the  other  hand,  preserve  wealth  and  strength,  and 
so,  ultimately  at  least,  lead  to  honor.   Falsehood,  on  account  of 
its  kinship  with  cowardice,  if  for  no  other  reason,  brings  dis- 
grace  ;  likewise  deceit  and  dishonesty.    Veracity,  trustworthi- 
ness, and  uprightness,  on  the  contrary,  give  one  a  good  name. 
Thus  honor  becomes  the  guardian  of  morality ;  the  love  of 
honor  tends  to  determine  the  will  to  develop,  first  of  all,  the 
self-regarding  virtues,  and  then  also  to  acquire  the  social 
virtues,  or  at  least  to  avoid  injustice,  falsehood,  and  crime. 

No  detailed  account  is  needed  to  show  the  importance  of  this 
impulse  for  the  moral  education  of  the  race.     The  development 
of  the  human  virtues  in  the  species  — courage,  magnanimity, 
justice,    veracity -the    development   of   higher   capacities, 
economic  as  well  as  mental,  is  hardly  conceivable  without 
this  constantly  active  impulse.     The  regard  for  honor  and  the 
fear  of  disgrace  produce  a  few  good  results  even  in  the  most 
unpromising  cases :  the  sluggish  nature  is  goaded  to  action 
by   the  fear  of  the  disgrace  of  poverty  ;  the   timid  temper- 
ament is  urged  to  make  a  stand  for  fear  of  being  accused  of 
cowardice ;  the  defiant  and  stubborn  disposition  is  brought  to 
terms  by  the  fear  of  punishment  and  dishonor.     Nor  can  we 
ima-ine  the  performance  of  great  deeds  without  a  strong  love 
of  honor.     Fame,  honor  in  its  highest  degree,  was  the  most 
powerful  motive  in  most  of  the  men  who  brought  about  the 
great    turning-points    in    history,  -  in    Alexander,    Caesar, 
Frederick,  Napoleon.     And  great  mental  and  artistic  achieve- 
ments too  would  be  inconceivable  if  there  were  no  prospect  of 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


573 


distinction,  fame,  and  immortality  in  the  memory  of  man. 
The  love  of  fame,  it  is  true,  does  not  create  the  productive 
impulse,  but  without  it  the  latter  would  not  be  apt  to  develop. 
Even  among  the  great  saints  the  prospect  of  fame  was  not 
without  its  influence  :  though  they  despised  the  fame  of  men, 
it  was  because  they  hoped  to  achieve  a  liigher  fame  with  God. 

The  counter  proof  is  furnished  by  cases  where  absolutely 
no  regard  is  had  for  honor  and  disgrace.  Persons  who  no 
longer  have  any  fear  of  dishonor  because  they  have  no  honor 
to  lose,  have  reached  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation.  Such 
a  group  of  outcasts  exists  in  every  metropolis ;  professional 
criminals  and  prostitutes  form  its  complementary  halves : 
they  are  persons  who  have  no  more  honor  to  lose  and  no  hope 
to  redeem  it.  In  the  work  of  Av^-Lallemant  on  the  German 
criminal  class  ^  we  find  a  detailed  description  of  a  kind  of 
counter  society,  formed  by  these  "  dishonorables,"  which  has 
its  own  language,  its  own  customs  and  usages,  nay  its  own 
honor,  the  honor  of  thieves ;  so  impossible  is  it  for  men  to  do 
utterly  without  distinction  and  honor.  Its  language  is  a  mix- 
ture of  the  dregs  of  all  languages ;  the  language  of  one  people 
particularly  having  contributed  to  it,  a  people  which  has  lost 
its  honor  among  the  nations,  the  Jews.  Its  morality  is  a 
disgusting  immorality ;  the  criminal  honor,  the  degree  of  dis- 
grace which  each  one  brings  as  his  pledge,  so  to  speak ;  the 
more  disgraced  his  name  is  in  honorable  society,  the  more 
distinguished  he  is  in  the  counter  society. 

3.  The  proper  attitude  of  the  individual  towards  honor, 
the  virtue  into  which  the  impulse  of  honor  is  fashioned,  we  call 
the  love  of  honor.  We  may  define  it  as  that  liabit  of  the  will 
and  mode  of  conduct  which  seeks  to  gain  the  recognition  of 
the  virtuous  and  good  hy  means  of  honest  and  virtuous  actions. 
Perhaps  we  may  characterize  it  suitably,  from  two  points  of 
view,  as  proper  pride  and  proper  humility. 

Pride  (which  is  not  to  be  confused  with  haughtiness)  is  the 

1  4  vols.,  1858  ff. 


674 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


575 


antithesis  of  two  degenerate  forms  of  the  impulse  of  honor : 
vanity  and  ambition.     We  call  a  man  vain  who  is  greatly 
pleased  with  himself  and  his  achievements,  and  displays  them 
wherever  he  can,  for  the  sake  of  receiving  admiration  and 
praise  or   at  least  flattery.      The  vainglorious  man  is  not 
very  particular  in  the  choice  of  his  admirers,  or  in  the  choice 
of  the  things  for  which  he  is  distinguished.     His   constant 
aim  is  to  be  conspicuous  and  to  make  a  show;  he  is  not 
satisfied  unless  he  can  attract  attention  to  himself.     A  man  is 
ambitious  who    makes  honor  the  unconditional  goal  of  his 
striving,  that  is,  craves  for  honor  and  fame  at  the  price  of  all 
other  goods,  even  at  the  price  of  happiness  and  life,  self- 
respect  and  a  good  conscience.     Ambition  especially  strives 
for  political  reputation ;  it  craves  for  power,  rank,  and  posi- 
tion.    Vanity  seeks  to  arouse  admiration  by  personal  qualities, 
by  beauty  and  elegance,  by  brilliancy  and  wit,  by  long  nails 
and  stylish  clothes.     On  the  whole,  we  may  call  vanity  the 
feminine,  ambition  the  masculine,  form  of   the  degenerate 
impulse  of  honor.     Women  strive  to  please  by  all  kinds  of 
outward  show,  pretty  figures  and  dainty  faces,  superfluous 
finery  and  tinsel  culture.     To  please  a  man  is  as  yet  almost 
their  only  way  of  achieving  outward  distinction.     The  man's 
impulse   of  honor  is  usually   determined  by  his  birth   and 
calling ;  it  aims  at  objective  reputation :  the  honor  of  the  mer- 
chant is  wealth ;  that   of  the  prince,  power ;   that  of  the 
peasant,  the  size  and  productivity  of  his  fields.     Ambition 
based  upon  rank  and  family  traditions,  is  more  quiet,  constant, 
and  masculine  in  character,  while  that  which  aims  at  personal 
distinction,  through  literary,  artistic,  and  scientific  achieve- 
ments, approaches  the  feminine  form  of  ambition,  vanity.     It 
is    more   self-conceited   and   excitable,   self-consciousness   is 
more  vacillating,  evidently  because  we  are  here  concerned 
with   personal  accomplishments  and  achievements,  and  be- 
cause an  objective  standard  of  the  value  of  such  performances 
is  not  possible.     We  can  measure  the  rank  of  a  general,  or 


the  possessions  of  a  merchant,  but  who  can  determine  the 
poetical  value  of  a  poem,  or  the  artistic  value  of  a  painting  in 
comparison  with  others  ?  Here  there  is  great  room  for  illu- 
sions, and  on  illusion  vanity  chiefly  feeds.  It  is  evidently  due 
to  the  prevalence  of  vanity  in  artistic  and  scholastic  circles 
that  envy,  spite,  hatred,  calumny,  and  what  else  may  be  the 
effects  of  injured  pride,  are  nowhere  so  common  —  unless  it 
be  among  women  afflicted  with  vanity  —  as  among  the  ^enus 
irritahile  vatum,  the  irritable  and  irascible  tribe  of  poets  and 
authors,  actors  and  artists. 

Und  wenn  du  schiltst  und  wenn  du  tobst, 
Ich  will  es  geduldig  leiden. 
Doch  wenn  du  meine  Verse  nicht  lobst, 
Dann  lass  ich  mich  von  dir  scheiden.^ 

They  need  not  be  verses ;  even  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  age  of  two  manuscripts  or  the  second  marriages  of  clergjr 
men  may  constitute  a  ground  for  divorce,  as  we  know  from 
the  history  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

The  antithesis  of  vanity  is  pride.     The  vainglorious  man 
is  especially  anxious  to  be  considered  somebody,  and  to  rep- 
resent something,  and  then,  if  possible,  to  be  somebody.     The 
proud  man,  however,  desires,  above  all,  to  be  something,  and 
then,  if  possible,  to  be  considered  somebody.     But  he  is  select 
in  the   means  which  he  employs   to  gain  a  reputation;  he 
refuses  to  seek  for  fame  in  trivial  and  indifferent  or,  what 
is   still   worse,  in  absurd  and  disgraceful  things,  which   the 
fashion  of  the  day  makes  the  centre  of  attraction  for  a  fickle 
public.      Indeed    he   despises    the    applause    of    the    rabble 
altogether,  it  puts  him  to  shame,  he  shrinks  from  it.     He 
cares  for  the  opinion  of  the  best,  their  applause  alone  seems 
worthy  of  his  efforts  and  fills  him  with  happiness.     But  he 
consoles  himself  when  he  does  not  get  it,  for  one  thing  no 
one  can  take  from  him :  the  cause  itself  to  which  he  is  de- 

1  [I  will  patiently  bear  your  scoldings  and  ravings,  but  if  you  refuse  to  praise 
my  verses,  I  W.  get  a  divorce  from  you.] 


676 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


voting  his  strength,  the  consciousness  of  doing  honest  and 
efficient  work,  and  the  hope  that  the  future  will  honor  his 
sincere  endeavors.    At  all  events  he  refuses  to  have  recourse 
to  flattery  and  camaraderie  in  order  to  be  admired  in  return. 
He  does  not  allow  the  fear  of  displeasing  persons  in  power 
to  hamper  him  in  his  thoughts  or  actions.     Kepler  thus  con- 
cludes the  preface  of  his  Weltharmonik :  "  Your  forgiveness 
will  please  me,  your  anger  I  will  endure  ;  here  I  cast  the  die, 
and  write  a  book  to  be  read,  whether  by  contemporaries  or  by 
posterity,  I  care  not :   it  can  wait  for  readers  thousands  of 
years,  seeing  that  God  himself  waited  six  thousand  years  for 
some  one  to  contemplate  his  work."  ^    These  are  proud  words, 
and  a  proud  man  it  was  that  uttered  them.      Compare  with 
Kepler's  proud  demeanor  the  behavior  of  our  modern  scholars 
who  unblushingly  permit  their  pupils  and  colleagues  to  sing 
their  praises   to  their  very  faces   at   all   kinds   of  jubilees. 
Would  not  a  little  pride  be  more  becoming  ?     It  would,  at 
least,  make  the  profession  more  respected  ;  the  people  have  a 
keen  sense  of  propriety  in  such  things ;  fifty  years  ago  the 
German  scholar  was  held  in  higher   esteem   by  the   public 
than  at  present,  perhaps,  to  some  extent,  because  the  use  of 
incense  among  the  living  was  much  more  limited  than  now. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  regretted   that  titles  and  decorations  were 
rarer,  and  that  he  was  more  often  censured  and  ignored  by 
his  superiors  than  at  present.     Since   then  the  calling  has 
become  considerably  more  aristocratic  outwardly,  but  its  inner 
worth  and  real  fame  have  hardly  increased  in  proportion. 

4.  The  other  antithesis  of  the  love  of  honor  is  proper 
humility.  Pride  manifests  itself  in  the  proper  acceptance  of 
honor,  humility  in  the  proper  bestowal  of  honor. 

Humility  is  the  opposite  of  haughtiness.  The  haughty  man 
despises  others,  he  treats  them  condescendingly.  By  refus- 
ing to  show  them  proper  respect,  he  endeavors  to  keep  it  for 
himself,  as  it  were,  and  so  to  have  an  advantage  over  them. 

1  Reuschle,  Kepler^  p.  127. 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


577 


He  does  not  seek  converse  with  men,  indeed  he  actually 
shuns  it,  because  he  finds  that  his  expectations  with  respect  to 
honor  are  not  realized,  and  because  he  is  not  willing  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  others.  It  is  evidently  for  this  reason  that 
haughtiness  and  pride  are  so  easily  confused.  Haughtiness 
is,  moreover,  very  commonly  connected  with  servility.  The 
man  who  treats  those  whom  he  regards  as  his  inferiors  with 
brutal  haughtiness,  crouches  before  the  mighty.  He  uses 
all  the  arts  of  subservient  flattery  towards  those  who  are 
unquestionably  richer,  more  aristocratic,  powerful,  and  influ- 
ential than  he,  in  order  thus  to  rise  on  the  ladder  of  rank ; 
he  revenges  himself  on  those  below  him,  and  it  affords  him 
special  satisfaction  to  kick  his  patron  as  soon  as  he  has  out- 
stripped him.  In  this  way  he  gets  back  his  capital  with 
interest. 

Humility,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  every  one  the  honor 
which  is  his  due.  It  rejoices  at  the  merit  of  others,  and  is 
ever  ready  to  recognize  ability,  to  admire  excellence,  and  to 
reverence  goodness.  Genuine  humility  —  this  is  its  true  sign 
—  and  genuine  free-mindedness  go  together.  The  humble, 
free-minded  man  bows  before  what  is  truly  honorable,  even 
when  it  appears  in  menial  form,  and  refuses  to  mere  external 
power  what  belongs  to  the  venerable  alone.  It  is  with  pride 
that  he  sides  with  those  who  are  outraged  for  the  sake  of 
truth  and  justice,  and  he  considers  it  an  honor  to  suffer  dis- 
grace and  persecution  with  them.  The  word  of  the  judge  on 
the  judgment  day  applies  to  him :  "  I  was  in  prison  and  ye 
came  unto  me." 

These  are  two  well-known  types  :  the  servile-minded,  full 
of  haughtiness  and  baseness,  and  the  free-minded,  full  of 
noble  pride  and  reverence  and  deep  humility.  We  Germans 
have  an  example  of  a  man  of  the  latter  type  in  Freiherr  von 
Stein.  "Humble  before  God,  highminded,  magnanimous 
towards  men,  a  foe  of  falsehood  and  injustice,"  so  his  epi- 
taph characterizes  him.     And  Luther  once  said  of  himself  in 

37 


678 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


679 


■1 


commenting  upon  the  fif ty-first  Psalm :  "  When  I  bow  down 
and  humble  myself  before  God,  I  am  scornful  of  the  devil 
and  the  world,  defiant  and  haughty  in  the  Lord,  and  I  despise 
all  their  dangers,  strategy,  and  violence."    We  often  find,  upon 
the  old  German  passion  pictures,  the  two  types  painted  side 
by  side.    The  first  type  is  represented  by  the  soldiers  and  their 
voluntary  assistants,  who  revile  and  maltreat  Him  who  was 
forsaken  by  God  and  man ;  they  have  no  eye  for  His  ador- 
able soul,  or  if  they  do  obtain  a  glimpse  of  the  sublime  char- 
acter  of  the  noble  sufferer,  their  bitter  hate  becomes  all  the 
more  intense ;  nothing  affords  the  base-born  so  much  genuine 
pleasure   as  to  be  allowed,  by  those  in  authority,  to  spit  at 
and  to  trample  upon  the  pure  and  innocent.     The  other  type 
is  represented  by  the  women  under  the  cross.     With  fearless 
loyalty  their  tears  acknowledge  the  outcast  of  men;   their 
hearts  do  not  cease  revering  Him.     The  man  who  listens  to 
his  intellect  is  seduced  by  it  to  forsake  and  to  deny  Him :  His 
cause  is  lost ;  can  it  be  the  just  cause  when  all  in  authority 
and  all   competent  judges   decide   against  it?    The  sacred 
Btory  shows  its  profound  and  eternal  significance  even  in  such 
features  as  these.     The  sins  that  women  have   committed 
through  vanity,  women  have  again  atoned  by  their  faithful 
and  unswerving  devotion   and  adoration.    Nothing  in  this 
world   is   stronger  than  the   heart  of    a  humble  and  free- 
minded  woman.     There  is  no  higher  praise  for  women  than 
that  which  they  found  beneath  the  cross. 

6.  With  true  pride  and  true  humility,  true  self-esteem 
finally  is  joined.  The  proper  estimate  of  oneself  may  be 
defined  as  a  mean  between  pusillanimity  and  supercilious- 
ness.  Pusillanimity  is  habitual  faint-heartedness  in  regard 
to  the  problems  which  life  sets  before  us ;  it  weakens  our 
capacity  to  act  and  to  suffer.  Superciliousness  springs  from 
underestimating  our  tasks  and  overestimating  our  powers  ;  it 
regards  exertion  as  superfluous,  and  so  is  no  less  produc- 
tive of  failure  than  faintheartedness :  superciliousness  goeth 


before  destruction.  When  this  attitude  is  assumed  towards 
others,  it  becomes  haughtiness,  and  if  it  is  not  flattered,  ends 
by  abusing  them,  conduct  which  the  Greeks  aptly  characterize 
by  the  word  v^pt^.  True  self-esteem,  on  the  contrary,  which 
marks  the  efficient  man,  gives  him  confidence  in  his  own  will 
and  powers,  and  upon  the  latter  depend  security  in  decision 
and  firmness  in  execution.  But  the  great  conception  which  he 
has  of  his  task  guards  him  against  arrogantly  overestimating 
his  ability.  He  is  not  easily  satisfied  with  himself ;  it  is  no 
consolation  to  him  to  see  others  behind  him;  he  keeps  the 
great  and  excellent  men  before  his  eyes.  When  it  comes  to 
dividing  the  common  work,  he  is  always  ready  to  assume  the 
more  difficult  tasks,  but  when  honors  and  gifts  are  distributed, 
he  does  not  insist  upon  obtaining  an  equal  share.  Whenever 
life  places  him  in  a  position  to  solve  great  public  problems, 
we  have  the  type  of  the  highminded  man  (fi€ya\6ylrvxo<;)y  a 
man  who  esteems  himself  capable  of  great  things  and  is 
worth V  of  them. 

The   proper  estimate   of  one's  own   worth,  of  one's   own 
powers   and    achievements,  knowledge   of  self,  constitutes  a 
particularly  difficult  problem  of  self-culture.     Ever  since  the 
Delphic  inscription.  Know  thyself,  first  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Greeks,  the  question  concerning  the  importance 
and  possibility  of  self-knowledge  has  been  much  discussed 
The    opinions   of   Greek   thinkers   and   poets    are    found   in 
Schmidt's  Ethik  der  Crrieehen}     Reference  is  also  made  in 
that  work  to  Goethe's  words  in  his  Sprilche  in  Prosa  :     "  How 
can  we  learn  to  know  ourselves  ?    Never  by  contemplation, 
but  always  by  action.     Try  to  do  your  duty,  and  you  will 
know  at  once  what  is  in  you."     It  is  impossible  to  gain  a 
knowledge  of  oneself  as  an  object  in  a  theoretical  way,  by  re- 
flection ;  by  living,  suffering,  and  acting  we  reach  a  direct 
knowledge  of  what  we  may  expect  of  ourselves,  so  that  we 
shall  not  overstep  our  limits  in  choosing  our  tasks  and  our 

1  II.,  394  ff. 


580 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


HONOR  AND  LOVE  OF  HONOR 


581 


attitude  in  certain  positions  and  towards  certain  persons,  but 
will  choose  and  do  the  proper  thing  with  sure  tact.  There  is 
no  other  form  of  self-knowledge  than  this  instinctive  knowl- 
edge ;  an  abstract  psychological  self-knowledge  based  upon 
analysis  and  comparison  is  not  possible.  This  is  Schopen- 
hauer's view  also ;  he  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  we 
cannot,  in  spite  of  all  looking-glasses,  even  picture  to  our- 
selves our  own  bodily  physiognomy,  like  that  of  others,  because 
we  cannot  cast  upon  ourselves  the  "look  of  estrangement" 
which  is  the  condition  of  the  objectivity  of  perception.^  We 
do  not  see  ourselves  acting,  any  more  than  we  see  ourselves 
in  motion;  the  agent  cannot  observe  himself  while  acting, 
for  which  reason  too,  as  Goethe  says,  he  has  no  conscience 
as  an  agent.  His  attention  is  fixed  solely  upon  the  ex- 
ternal goal. 

Yes,  we  may  say,  the  inclination  to  reflect  upon  oneself  is  a 
symptom  of  a  morbid  condition ;  it  springs  from  a  lack  of  self- 
reliance.     And  reflection  is  by  no  means  able  to  remove  the 
defect,  —  it  merely  intensifies  it ;  self-reflection  resembles  the 
conduct  of  the  gardener  who  digs  up  the  roots  of  his  trees 
to  see  whether  they  are  sound.    This,  too,  is  Goethe's  idea. 
In  a  conversation  with  Eckermann  he  rejects  the  demand, 
"  Know   thyself,"  as    a    curious  demand  which    no    one  has 
ever    satisfied,  and  which   no   one   really   ought  to  satisfy. 
"Man  is   bound  by  all  his  thoughts  and   strivings  to  the 
external,  to  the  world  around  him,  and  he  is  kept  busy  in 
understanding  this  world  and  in  making  it  serviceable  to  him- 
self, so  far  as  his  purposes  require.    Of  his  own  self  he  becomes 
aware  only  when  he  enjoys  and  suffers,  and  so  too  his  sorrows 
and  joys  alone  teach  him  what  to  seek  and  what  to  avoid.     In 
other  respects,  however,  man  is  an  obscure  being ;  he  knows 
not  whence  he  came  nor  whither  he  goes  ;  he  knows  little 
of  the  world  and  less   of  himself.    I  do  not  know  myself, 
and  may  God  preserve  me  from  it."     Here,  again,  Schopen- 

1  ParergUy  11. ,  §  343. 


hauer  offers  himself  as  an  interpreter  of  Goethe.  The 
"obscure  being"  is  the  will,  which  only  gradually  manifests 
itself,  as  Schopenhauer  shows  in  the  instructive  nineteenth 
chapter  of  the  second  volume  of  the  World  as  Will  and 
Idea, 

6.  Modesty  may  be  defined  as  the  outward  form  of  the  love 
of  honor.  The  modest  man  shows  by  his  entire  behavior 
that  he  does  not  despise  the  opinion  of  others,  but  that  he 
desires  to  make  an  effort  to  gain  their  esteem.  Tlie  opposite 
demeanor  is  that  of  the  overhearing  man ;  his  acts  proclaim 
that  he  does  not  care  what  others  may  think  of  liim.  When 
such  conduct  is  displayed  toward  especially  venerable  persons, 
we  call  it  insolence  and  impudence^  the  sign  of  a  low  and 
servile  disposition. 

Modesty  is  the  natural  habit  of  youth.     The  young  have 
no  independent  opinions  of  what  is  good  and  proper,  but  are 
governed  by  the  opinions  of  others.     Hence  it  behooves  the 
young  man  to  respect  the  opinions  of  others  ;  modesty  {pudor) 
is,  as  it  were,  the  down  of  a  youthful  soul,  not  yet  touched  by 
the  hands  of  the  world.     Forwardness  or  even  insolence,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  a  sign  of  uncouthness.     It  is  easily  pro- 
duced by  the  awkward  ignorance  of  teachers  ;  it  is  particularly 
encouraged  by  training  the  child  to  flattery  and  ostentation. 
The  opening  scene  in  King  Lear  is  a  grand  picture  al  fresco 
of  false  education.    Imagine  that  which  is  here  condensed 
into  the  few  lines  of  a  scene  as  the  outgrowth  of  a  long-con- 
tinued abuse  of  the  child-soul  by  paternal    vanity,  and  you 
have  a  faithful  picture  of  an  educational  method  which  is  not 
infrequent  either  in  homes  or  in  schools,  or  wherever  education 
is  carried  on.     How  often  may  not  the  foolish  old  man  have 
asked  his  daughters  whether  they  loved  him,  and  how  much 
they   loved   him?    His   constant  questionings  have  already 
destroyed  all  love  and  reverence  in  his  older  daughters  ;  they 
despise  the  old  fool  and  flatter  him.     Cordelia,  the  youngest, 
has  just  left  the  care  of  a  faithful  nurse,  so  we  may  assume ; 


682 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


HONOR   AND  LOVE   OF   HONOR 


583 


!:1 


I 


I 


she  does  not  yet  know  how  to  flatter,  and,  fortunately,  receives 
no  more  lessons  in  the  art. 

Besides,  modesty  is  becoming  to  every  age,  particularly  to 
all  those  who  appear  before  the  public.     It  was  usual  for  the 
authors  of  the  last  century  to  appeal  to  the  "  gentle  reader," 
a  more  commendable  custom  than  the  one  which  came  into 
voo-ue  during  the  age  of  Romanticism  and  Speculative  Phil- 
osophy, that,  namely,  of  giving  the  reader  to  understand,  first 
in  the  preface  and  afterwards   on   every  possible  occasion, 
between  the  lines  and  in  the  lines,  that  he  was  a  very  inferior 
creature,  who  would  not,  of  course,  succeed  in  fathoming  all 
the  profound  thoughts  there  set  forth.     If,  however,  in  spite 
of  this,  he  still  insisted  on  reading  the  book,  he  was  told  not 
to  be  discouraged  in  case  the  expected  should  happen,  that  we 
could  not  all  be  philosophers,  and  to  remember  also  that  due 
warning  had  been  given  him.     It  is  very  remarkable  that  the 
German  public  actually  allowed  itself  to  be  bullied  in  this 
fashion,  and  for  a  long  time  was  accustomed  to  admire  as 
profound  what  it  did  not  understand.     Hence  writers  are  not 
wanting  to  this  day  who  speak  in  such  a  strain ;  insolence 
still  continues  to  impress  the  average  German.     The  spirit  of 
English  scientific  intercourse  forms  a  highly  pleasing  contrast 
to  the  German  habit.     Take  such  writers  as  Mill  and  Darwin : 
they  speak  to  the  reader  as  though  he  did  them  a  favor  by 
listening  to  them,  and  whenever  they  enter  upon  controversy, 
they  do  it  in  a  manner  which  expresses  respect  and  a  desire 
for  mutual  understanding.     The  German  scholar  believes  that 
it   will   detract  from   the   respect  due   him   if  he  does   not 
assume   a   tone   of    condescension   or   overbearing    censure. 
Examine  the  first  scientific  journal  you  may  happen  to  pick 
up  :   even   the  smallest   anonymous   announcement  breathes 
the    air    of    infinite    superiority,    even    the    most    friendly 
recognition  is  accompanied  by  the  tacit  or  explicit  assurance 
that  the  "  reviewer,"  of  course,  understands  the  subject  better, 
and  that  it  is  therefore  really  a  pity  that  it  did  not  fall  into 


better  hands.  In  case  the  ''reviewer"  differs  from  the 
writer,  he  does  not  rest  satisfied  until  he  has  proved  to  his 
credulous  readers  that  his  opponent  is  a  worthless  and  mali- 
cious fool.  The  philologists,  especially,  are  tried  and  acknowl- 
edged masters  in  this  field.  Is  it  the  occupation  with  the 
infinitely  little  that  makes  them  so  irascible  and  intolerant  ? 

The  foreign  observer  might,  I  fear,  be  easily  led  to  believe 
that  overbearing  impudence  was  at  present  regarded  as  a 
specially  estimable  quality  in  Germany.  When  we  examine  a 
book  of  historical  portraits  like  that  published  by  E.  von 
Seidlitz  and  look  at  the  pictures  of  the  last  century  or  of  the 
first  half  of  the  present  century,  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  a 
great  change  has  taken  place  in  the  physiognomies  since  that 
time :  the  "  smart "  {schneidig)  face  is  the  type  affected  by 
the  modern  generation.  Think  of  the  beards  and  their  sym- 
bolical-physiognomical significance,  which  is  expressed  in  the 
saying :  Haare  auf  den  Zdhnen  haben ;  oderint  dum  metuant 
would  be  an  appropriate  motto  for  them.  Or  look  at  the  por- 
traits in  our  so-called  art  exhibitions  :  each  person  repre- 
sented seems  anxious  to  show  his  contempt  for  the  observer 
in  some  way  or  other.  The  hand  in  his  breeches-pocket,  the 
tired,  scarcely  elevated,  uninterested  eye,  the  eye-glass  in  his 
extended  left  hand,  the  cigar  stump  from  which  the  ashes 
have  just  been  knocked  off,  —  they  all  seem  to  say  :  What  do 
I  care  for  the  rabble  that  is  crowding  around  to  see  me! 
And  then  let  your  gaze  rest  on  the  "  smart "  female  who 
turns  her  back  upon  the  spectator  and  grants  him  only  a 
quarter  view,  or  lets  her  big  dog  stare  at  him. 


|i 
111 

li 


i 
^1 


SUICIDE 


585 


CHAPTER  VII 

SUICIDE  1 

1.  Suicide  is  a  phenomenon  peculiar  to  man.  Its  possi- 
bility, in  a  certain  sense,  depends  upon  the  power  of  the  will 
.  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  natural  control  of  the  impulses. 
Animals  do  not  reflect  upon  life  as  a  whole,  hence  they  have 
no  freedom  of  choice.  Freedom  of  choice  and  consequently 
the  possibility  of  suicide  depend  upon  the  development  of 
man's  intelligence ;  upon  it  also  depends  the  possibility  of 
insanity,  a  phenomenon  which  is  likewise  peculiar  to  human 
life,  and  which  is  closely  connected  with  suicide.  The  animal 
intelligence  is  subservient  to  the  will  and  therefore  proof 
against  such  aberrations. 

Suicide  is  rendered  possible  by  the  growth  of  the  intelli- 
gence, and  its  frequency  seems  to  increase  with  the  progress 
of  civilization.  From  the  large  collection  of  statistical  facts 
which  the  Italian  H.  Morselli  has  examined  in  his  work  on 
suicide,  it  may  be  seen  beyond  a  doubt  that  there  has  been  a 
constant  and  uniform  increase  in  the  number  of  suicides  dur- 

1  [Statistical:  Oettingen.  Maralstatistik,  §  59,  pp.  737-785;  Morselli,  Suicide 
(abridged  and  revised  translation  in  International  Science  Series) ;  Masaryk,  Ver 
Selbstmord  ah  soziale  Massenerscheinung  der  modernen  Civilisation.  Ancient  and 
Christian  ideas  of  suicide:  Lecky,  L,  212-222,  331;  IL.  43-61  Philosophical 
views  of  suicide :  justifying  it :  Hume,  On  Suicide ;  Hartmann,  Phenomenol^ie  des 
sittlichen  Bewusstseins,  pp.  860  ff. ;  Mainlander,  Phil  der  ErWsungi^v- 3^9  &■ ;  con- 
demning  it :  Kant,  Metaph.sik  der  Sitten,  vol.  VII.,  pp.  277  ff-  (Hart-stem  s 
edition);   Grundlegung  zur  Metaphy^k  der  ^^^^^^^'''^'^^^^^^  ^   ' 

Schopenhauer.  Welt  als  Wille.  vol.  L,  §  69 ;  Paley,  Bk.  IV.,  3  ;  Ho^ding^L^ 
4 ;  DUhring,  Der  Werth  des  Lebens,  VI.,  6 ;  Porter,  §  175 ;  Runze,  §  12.  See  also 
Staudlin,  Geschichte  der  Vorstellungen  vom  Selbstmord,  1824. -Tr.] 


ing  the  nineteenth  century  in  most  of  the  European  countries.^ 
In  France,  for  example,  the  average  number  of  suicides  a  year 
has  risen  from  54    to   154  per   million  inhabitants,  during 
fifty  years  from  1826  to  1875  ;  in  Prussia,  from  70.2  to  173.5, 
between  1816  and  1877.     The  increase  is  still  greater  in  Ger- 
man Austria.    There  are  countries,  it  is  true,  where  the  con- 
ditions are  more  favorable ;  in  England,  for  instance,  the  in- 
crease in  the  last  fifty  years  seems  to  be  scarcely  noticeable, 
the  average  numbers  oscillate  around  65  per  million  inhabi- 
tants.    In  Norway  the  figures  have  even  fallen  from  80  to  70. 
The  local  distribution  likewise  shows  the  dependence  of 
suicide  upon  the  intensity  of  civilization.     As  a  rule,  suicides 
are  the  more  frequent  in  European  countries  the  more  civil- 
ized the  latter  are.     Here,  too,  however,  the  English  form  a 
conspicuous  exception.    The  maximum  figures  (200-300)  ap- 
pear in  central  Europe  ;  as  we  come  nearer  to  the  boundaries 
they  diminish   greatly,  falling  below  25  in    Southern  Italy, 
Spain,  and  Ireland,  below  50  in  Northern  Italy,  Scotland, 
Northern  Sweden,  and  Russia,  below  75  in  Hungary,  Poland, 
and  Southern  Sweden.     The  metropolitan  and  industrial  local- 
ities give  the  largest  averages.     Saxony  and  Thuringia  head 
the  list  with  about  300  in  Germany ;  then  come  Brandenburg, 
including  Berlin,  204,  Schleswig-Holstein,  including  Ham- 
burg, 250 ;   in  Austria,  Lower  Austria  with  Vienna  comes 
first,  254,  followed  by  Bohemia,  158 ;  in  France,  Paris  forms 
the  centre  of  irradiation  from  which  the  influence  extends  to 
an  entire  group  of  adjoining  provinces,  Seine,  Marne,  Oise, 
about  400  ;  then  comes  the  industrial  North  of  France.     The 
same  law  may  be  observed  in  the  three  capitals  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries.     A  striking  exception  is  formed  by  West- 
phalia and  the  Rhineland,  Belgium  and  Holland,  in  which 
the  average  figures  fall  below  75,  thus  following  the  English 
group. 

^  Compare  also  Th.  Masaryk,  Der  Selbstmord  als  soziale  Massenerscheinung  der 
modernen  Civilisation^  1881. 


586 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


It  is  further  noticeable  that  within  the  separate  countries, 
suicide   seems  to  be   more    prevalent   among  the  educated 
classes.     Morselli  gives  the  following  data  for  Italy :  ^  the 
group,  letters  and  science,  heads  the  list,  with  614  per  million 
male  individuals   belonging  to  this   group;   then   come   de- 
fenders  of  the   country,  404;  instruction,   education,   355; 
public  administration,  324  ;   commerce,   277  ;  jurisprudence, 
218;   medical  professions,  201;   industrial   productions,  80; 
production  of  raw  materials,  27.     For  France  the  following 
figures  are  given.^     The  number  of  suicides  per  million  in- 
habitants is :  domestic  service,  83 ;  commerce  and  transport, 
98;  production  of  raw  materials.  111;  industry,  159 ;  liberal 
professions,  510.     Other  statisticians  reach  different  results, 
but  they  do   not   contradict  the   law  that   suicide  is  least 
common  under  the  simplest  conditions  of  life,  and  that  it 
becomes  more  frequent  as  the  conditions  become  more  com- 
plex. —  No  one  will  seek  the  cause  for  this  in  higher  educa- 
tion as  such ;  it  is  due  to  a  number  of  concomitant  phenomena. 
Such  are  deviations  from  the  original  and  natural  conditions 
of  life  and  forms  of  labor;  one-sided  exercise  of  the  brain, 
especially  when    caused  by   premature    mental  labor;  ex- 
haustive  and  subtle  forms  of  enjoyment ;  violent  desires  and 
breathless  pursuit  of  fortune,  connected  with  great  disappoint- 
ments and  catastrophes.     All  these  causes  come  together  in 
the  great  centres  of  modern  life,  and  here  they  are  especially 
potent  among  the  higher  strata  of  the  population. 

2.    How  is  suicide  to  be  judged  morally  f 

Our  natural  feeling  in  reference  to  it  is  one  of  dread.  Our 
horror  of  death  is  intensified  by  intentional  homicide  in  every 
form,  such  as  murder  and  execution.  Nothing  seems  more  un- 
natural and  terrible  than  when  an  individual  takes  his  own  life. 
The  church  obeyed  the  common  instinct  when  it  regarded 
the  suicide  as  an  outcast,  even  refusing  to  allow  him  to  bo 

1  p.  244. 

2  p.  251. 


SUICIDE 


587 


buried  in  hallowed  ground.  Among  the  old  Greeks  suicides 
were  deprived  of  honors  to  the  dead;  the  act  was  looked 
upon  as  a  violation  of  the  sense  of  awe  with  which  the  an- 
cients regarded  all  violent  interference  with  the  natural  order 
of  things.^ 

In  this  respect,  again,  philosophy   runs  counter  to  popu- 
lar opinion.     Among  the  Greek  schools,  the  Stoics  and  Epicu- 
reans, particularly,  strongly  defend  the  moral  possibility  of 
suicide.     They  praise  as  a  prerogative  of  man  the  freedom 
to  leave  life  when  it  has  no  further   value.2     And  a  great 
number  of  men,  prominent  in  public  life  and  literature,  made 
use   of  their  freedom.     The  liberal   philosophy   of  modern 
times   shows   the  same  general   tendency.     In  his  essay  on 
suicide,  Hume  states  the  grounds  on  which  suicide  may  some- 
times be  justified.     He  shows  that  suicide  is  not  necessarily  a 
transgression  of  our  duty  to  God,  our  neighbor,  or  ourselves. 
Not  to  God,  for  "  were  the  disposal  of  human  life  so  much 
reserved  as  the  peculiar  province  of  the  Almighty  that  it 
were  an  encroachment  of  his  right  for  men  to  dispose  of 
their  own  lives,  it  would  be  equally  criminal  to  act  for  the 
preservation  of  life  as  for  its  destruction.     If  I  turn  aside 
a  stone  which  is  falling  upon  my  head,  I  disturb  the  course 
of  nature  "  as  much  as  if  I  turn  a  few  ounces  of  blood  from 
their  natural  channel.     But  if  it  be  said  that  the  natural 
impulse  tends  to  self-preservation,  the  suicide  may  reply :  I 
do  not  experience  this  impulse  and  may  conclude  therefrom 
that  I  am  recalled  from  my  station.     Nor  is  suicide  neces- 
sarily a  breach  of  our  duty  to  our  neighbor  or  to  ourselves. 
A  man  who  is  not  able  to  do  good  to  others  but  is  a  burden 
to  them,  who  does  not  value  his  life  but  endures  it  as  a 
torture,  who   can  cut  short  his  miseries  without  wounding 
anybody  in  the  world,  does  no  wrong  by  laying  down  the 
burden.     On  the  contrary,  he  might  say,  "  it  is  the  only  way 

1  Schmidt,  Ethik  der  Grtechen,  II.  441 ;  [Lecky,  212-214. —  Tr.]. 

2  [See  Seneca,  Letters,  26,  70.— Tr.] 


688 


DOCTRINE  OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


SUICIDE 


589 


n 


\i 
hi 


that  I  can  be  useful  to  society,  by  setting  an  example  of  how 
every  one  has  the  power  of  freeing  himself  from  misery."  ^ 

Indeed,  I  do  not  believe  that  we  must  necessarily  regard 
self-preservation  as  a  duty,  and  voluntary  death  as  a  violation 
of  duty.     It  is  said  that  Frederick  the  Great  carried  a  little 
bottle  of  poison  on  his  person  during  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
and  that  he  intended  to  commit  suicide  in  case  he  was  made 
a  prisoner,  so  that  his  country  might  not  incur  the  danger  of 
sacrificing  its  interests  in  order  to  ransom  its  ruler.     It  is 
obvious  that  such  an  act  could  not  have  been  judged  other- 
wise than  the  act  of  a  captain  who  blows  up  himself  and  his 
ship  to  save  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  or 
that  of  a  pioneer  who  sacrifices  his  life  in  order  to  make  a  way 
for  his  family.     Or  take  the  case  of  Themistocles  :  banished 
by  the  Athenians,  pursued  by  the  Lacedaemonians,  he  finally, 
after  many  wanderings,  finds  a  refuge  with  the  Great  King. 
When  the  Persian  asks  him  to  show  his  gratitude  by  promot- 
ing his  plans  against  the  Greeks,  he  puts  an  end  to  his  life. 
Who  will  dare  to  reproach  him  for  this,  or  who  can  tell  him 
what  else  he  ought  to  have  done  ? —  But  even  when  a  man 
commits  suicide  in  order  to  leave  a  life  that  has  become 
intolerable,  I  have  not  the  courage  absolutely  to  condemn  the 
act.     When  a  man  who  has  met  with  reverses  or  has  been 
disappointed  gives  up  like  a  coward,  leaving   his  family  in 
misery  and  want,  we  have  a  right  to  judge  him  harshly. 
But  when  a  man  can  no  longer  endure  a  hopeless  and  pain- 

1  [See  Hume's  Essays,  Green  &  Grose's  edition,  vol.  II.,  pp.  405  ff .]  It  is  said 
that  when  any  one  among  the  Massilians  desired  to  drink  the  poison  hemlock,  he 
could  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  Council  of  the  Six  Hundred  by  giving  his  reasons 
for  voluntarily  departing  from  life.  Those  afflicted  with  incurable  and  painful  dis- 
eases in  Thomas  More's  Utopia  are  exliorted  by  priests  and  magistrates  to  do  what 
is  the  best  under  the  circumstances:  no  longer  to  nourish  the  torturing  pain,  but  to 
die  courageously.  Such  as  are  wrought  on  by  these  persuasions  starve  themselves 
of  their  own  accord,  or  take  opium,  and  by  that  means  die  without  pain.  Suicide 
without  authority,  on  the  other  hand,  is  regarded  as  reprehensible.  Carlyle, 
too,  once  expressed  the  opinion  that  there  was  no  justice  in  depriving  a  man  of 
the  freedom  to  escape  from  unbearable  tortures  by  voluntary  death,  as  is  done  in 
England  by  laws  and  the  pressure  of  public  opinion. 


ful  malady,  when  he  feels  that  everybody  is  tired  of  him 
and  would  be  materially  benefited  by  his  going,  the  impar- 
tial judge  will  view  the  case  differently.  True,  we  say:  it 
is  grand  and  ennobling  for  a  person  to  bear  great  suffer- 
ings in  patience;  we  admire  the  hero  in  his  suffering  as 
much  as  the  hero  in  battle.  But  — heroism  is  not  a  duty, 
it  is  meritorious  to  be  a  hero,  but  it  is  human  not  to  be  one. 
We  cannot  withhold  our  sympathy  from  one  who  sinks  be- 
neath his  load,  or  forget  the  word  of  charity :  "  He  that  is 
without  sin  let  him  first  cast  a  stone."  If  a  man  says. 
Suicide  is  suicide,  and  as  such  reprehensible,  we  cannot 
argue  with  him ;  his  own  feelings  will  contradict  him  in  the 
given  case. 

It  is  usually  said  that  suicide   is  the  result  of  cowardice. 
Cases  undoubtedly  occur  in  which  this  is  so.     A  man  without 
the  power  to  act  and  to  suffer  meets  with  a  misfortune ;  he 
loses  his  head  and  sees  no  other  escape  but  the  rope,  while  a 
brave  and  energetic  man  would  have  overcome  the  difficulty 
with  patience,  and  would  have  begun  life  anew.     A  banker 
squanders  the  money  of  his  customers  and  then  shoots  him- 
self in  the  head  :  certainly  this  is  cowardly  and  base.     But  the 
conditions  are  not  always  like  these.     A  man  who,  like  Them- 
istocles, after  careful  deliberation,  makes  up  his  mind,  and 
then  does  what  he  thinks  necessary,  that  he  may  not  suffer 
or  do  anything  unworthy  of  himself,  will  most  likely  regard 
the  charge  of  cowardice  as  a  rather  pedantic  jest.  —  And  he 
will  scarcely  be  affected  by  statements  such  as  are  found  in 
Schopenhauer  or  the  Neo-Platonists,  that  flight  from  life  is 
flight  from  suffering ;  that  suffering,  however,  is  the  necessary 
means  of  deliverance  from  the  will-to-live.     He  will  perhaps 
answer :  I  am  so  free  from  the  will-to-live  that  I  am  about  to 
leave  life,   without  feeling  the  slightest  desire  to    renew   it. 
The  metaphysician  may,  if  he  chooses,  worry  over  the  question 
whether  death  will  realize  that  purpose.     I  am  not  troubled 
about  that,  and  I  have  no  desire  to  enter  upon  these  sophis- 


690 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


SUICIDE 


591 


tical,  rather  than  profound,  discussions,  in  which  the  meta- 
physician tries  to  prove  that  voluntary  death  puts  an  end  to 
life  as  a  phenomenon  but  not  to  the  will  as  a  thing  in  itself. 
3.  Nevertheless,  I  do  not  think  that  the  condemnation  of 
suicide  is  utterly  groundless.  If  we  consider,  not  the  excep- 
tions but  the  rule,  we  must  regard  suicide  as  an  act  by  which 
the  suicide  himself  condemns  his  entire  life :  it  is,  as  a  rule,  the 
ignoble  end  of  an  ignoble  life.  The  wages  of  sin  is  death ;  the 
words  of  the  apostle  are  surely  applicable  to  self-destruction. 
There  are  exceptions,  perhaps  numerous  exceptions,  but  they 
do  not  disprove  the  rule.  The  popular  judgment  is  the  result 
of  experience:  Suicide  is  the  natural  conclusion  of  a  sinful 

life. 

Here,  again,  we  may  refer  to  statistics.  Difficult  though 
it  is  to  obtain  definite  answers  to  the  question  concern- 
ing the  causes  of  suicide,  we  may  ascertain  certain  general 
facts  from  the  material  at  hand.  In  Morselli's  table  ^  in- 
sanity appears  as  the  most  frequent  motive,  embracing 
about  one-third  of  all  the  cases  for  which  a  motive  can 
be  given.  Then  come  physical  diseases,  weariness  of  life, 
vices  (drunkenness  and  dissipation),  afflictions  (especially 
domestic  troubles),  misery  and  financial  disorders,  re- 
morse, shame,  fear  of  condemnation.  The  figures  are  differ- 
ent for  different  countries,  but  they  nearly  agree  in  that 
each  motive  embraces  one-tenth  of  all  the  cases.  The  small 
remainder  of  about  one-twentieth  is  divided  among  the  pas- 
sions, love,  jealousy,  and  anger.  We  observe  that  suicide,  as 
a  rule,  marks  the  end  of  a  mentally,  bodily,  morally,  econom- 
ically, or  socially  deranged  life.  Only  in  a  relatively  small 
number  of  cases  are  vices  given  as  the  direct  cause.  If  we 
were  to  investigate  the  other  motives,  we  should  without 
doubt  very  frequently  discover  as  their  primary  causes :  per- 
verse desires  and  bad  habits  of  life,  either  in  the  individuals 
themselves  or  in  their  parents  and  ancestors.    Alcohol^  es- 

1  p.  273. 


pecially,  would  be  found  to  be  the  chief  destroyer  of  the  vital 
powers :  it  ruins  the  brain  and  creates  an  hereditary  tendency 
to  mental  as  well  as  bodily  diseases  and  weariness  of  life ;  it 
destroys  economic  welfare,  it  causes  domestic  troubles,  it  leads 
to  criminal  acts,  which  are  expiated  with  remorse  and  disgrace. 
Thus  suicide  is  a  symptom  and  criterion  of  morally-diseased 
conditions.     But  we  must  be  careful  here.     We  should  not 
regard  a  classification  of  nations  and  classes  according  to  the 
frequency  of  suicide  as  a  classification  according  to  their 
moral   worth.     We  should  not  forget  that  indolence  is  the 
best  preventive  of  suicide.     Nor  should  we  lose  sight  of  these 
facts  in  judging  particular  cases.     Suicide  is  the  confession 
of  a  guilty  life,  not  a  healthy  confession,  it  is  true,  one  that 
marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  life,  but  the  desperate  confes- 
sion of  the  complete  inability  to  begin  a  new  life.     But  in  so 
far  as  it  is  a  confession  of  the   suicide's   unwillingness   to 
continue  his  old  life,  it  is  likewise  a  sign  that  not  every  spark 
of  good  has  been  extinguished  in  his  soul.    It  is  not  the  abso- 
lutely debased  who  take  their  lives,  but  those  who  do  not 
possess  the  moral  power  to  resist  the  pernicious  impulses  of 
their  own  natures  and  the  unfavorable   influences   of  their 
outward  surroundings,  and  yet  retain  a  sufficient  sense  of  the 
better  to  be  unwilling  to  endure  their  unworthy  lives   and 
evil  deeds.     The  suicide  of  Judas  Iscariot,  it  seems  to  me, 
in  a  certain  measure  disarms  our  judgment  of  him.     That 
he  was  able  to  despair  of  what  he  had  done,  shows  that  he 
was  not  an  utterly  wicked  man.     Otherwise  he  would  have 
behaved  differently :  he  would  have  squandered  his  money  in 
merry-making,  or  he  would  have  put  it  to  usury,  and  have 
achieved  further  distinction  along  the  same  lines.     Instead  of 
that,  he  pronounced  judgment  upon  himself,  finding  it  impos- 
sible to  make  atonement  by  submitting  to  earthly   justice. 
Although  it  may  not  have  been  the  proper  atonement,  it  was 
nevertheless  a  kind  of  expiation. 


COMPASSION  AND   BENEVOLENCE 


693 


Ui 


'  ft 

•I 


CHAPTER   VIII 

COMPASSION  AND  BENEVOLENCE  i 

1.  The  sympathetic  feelings  and  impulses  form  the  natural 
basis  of  the  social  virtues.  Such  will-impulses  are  called 
sympathetic  —  in  distinction  from  idiopathic  impulses,  which 
originate  directly  in  the  individual  —  as  are  aroused  in  us  by 
transference  from  others,  by  a  kind  of  contagion.  All  feel- 
ings have  the  tendency,  though  in  different  degrees,  to  spread 
by  sympathy,  as  for  example,  pleasure  and  pain,  fear  and 
hope,  love  and  hate,  contempt  and  admiration,  cheerful  ex- 
uberance and  earnest  solemnity.  The  passions  aroused  by  a 
speech  in  a  large  popular  gathering  are  much  more  intense 
than  those  which  arise  when  the  same  persons  read  or  hear 
the  same  speech  separately  ;  it  seems  as  though  the  feelings 
were  reflected  from  every  feeling-centre  in  the  meeting  to 
every  other  one,  and  the  rays  concentrated  in  each  individual 
as  in  a  burning-glass. 

Not  only  is  the  human  heart  sensitive  to  sympathetic  ex- 
citement, it  likewise  yearns  deeply  to  have  its  feelings  com- 
municated to  and  reflected  from  other  hearts.  When  we 
are  happy  or  in  pain,  we  crave  for  human  beings  to  reflect  our 
joy  or  sorrow ;  when  we  love  or  hate,  admire  or  contemn,  we 
strive  to  diffuse  our  feelings,  and  are  pained  when  our  sur- 
roundings remain  indifferent  to   us.     Every  strong  emotion 

1  [Sidgwick,  Bk.  III.,  ch.  IV.;  Stephen,  ch.  VI.;  Porter,  Part  II.,  ch.  VII.; 
Wundt,  Part  I.,  ch.  III.,  4  d,  5  ;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Part  II.,  ch.  II. ;  Spencer, 
Inductions,  chs.  VII.,  VIII. ;  Ethics  of  Social  Life,  Part  V.,  ch.  I. ;  Seth,  Part  II., 
ch.  II. ;  Rnnze,  §  64.  See  also  chapters  on  Sympathy  in  the  standard  psycho- 
logies. —  Tr.] 


impels  us  to  utterance  ;  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh." 

Blood-relationship  is  the  natural  starting-point  of  the 
sympathetic  feelings.  They  manifest  themselves  most  in- 
tensely and  directly  in  the  relation  between  mother  and  child. 
Originally  one  being,  they,  in  a  certain  sense,  continue  to  live 
one  life,  though  with  a  separate  physical  economy.  From 
this  point  sympathy  extends  to  the  members  of  the  family, 
tribe,  people,  humanity,  —  to  all  living  creatures.  Sounds  and 
gestures  at  first  serve  as  a  means  of  communication ;  the  more 
complicated  and  characteristic  feelings  and  moods  are  trans- 
mitted by  language  and  the  symbols  of  art. 

Of  all  feelings  pain  seems  most  capable  of  arousing  sym- 
pathy.    Language  shows  this:  we  have  a  term   for  sympa- 
thetic pain  only,  in  compassion  (Mitleid).     No  terms   have 
been  coined  to  designate  sympathetic  pleasure  or  fear :  (^Mit- 
freude,  Mitfurcht,  etc.).  -—  It  is  doubtless  true  that  joy  is  not 
so  easily  transferred  by  sympathy.     This  may  perhaps  be  ex- 
plained as  follows.     Pleasure  and   pain   have   not  only  the 
tendency  to  arouse  sympathy,  but  also  a  tendency  to  arouse 
antipathy :    happiness   produces    in    the  surroundings    that 
peculiar  form  of  pain  which  is  called  envy ;  unhappiness,  on 
the  contrary,  produces  malicious  pleasure  (^Schadenfreude), 
Everybody  compares  himself  and  his  condition  with  that  of 
others ;  and  since  there  is  no  absolute  standard,  we  measure 
our   powers,   reputation,   and  possessions   by    those    of    our 
fellows.      In  case  the  comparison  results  in   our  favor,  we 
experience  pleasure,  otherwise  pain.     The  happiness  of  others, 
therefore,  has   a    depressing   effect,    their   unhappiness   an 
elevating  effect  upon  our  self-esteem. 

These  are  well-known  phenomena :  they  are  never  entirely 
wanting  in  man.  The  pessimistic  philosophers  love  to 
dwell  upon  this  truly  partie  honteuse  of  human  nature.  In 
the  troubles  of  our  good  friends,  says  La  Rochefoucauld,  there 
is  always  something  that  does  not  displease  us.     And  with 

38 


594 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


COMPASSION  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


595 


.^1 

1 


Ml 


;i 


still  greater  justice  may  we  assert  that  there  is  always  some- 
thing in  the  good  fortune  of  our  friends  that  does  not  entirely 
please  us.    A  man  wins  the  first  prize  in  a  lottery;  his 
friends  congratulate  him  with  mingled  feelings  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  especially  those  who  have  drawn  the  blanks.     A  second 
one  passes  a  brilliant  examination ;  he  should  beware  of  men- 
tioning it,  especially  to  his  less  fortunate  competitors.    On 
the  other  hand,  if  he  has  met  with  a  misfortune,  if  he  has 
fallen  from  his  horse,  or  has  been  hooted  as  a  speaker,  or 
has  speculated  and  lost  on  the  exchange,  he  need  not  let  the 
fear  of  paining  his  good  friends  hinder  him  from  telling  it. 
He  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  persons  to  pity  him, 
but  — well,  everybody  knows  how  little  we  care  for  the  pity 
of  our  friends  on  such  occasions.    I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
intense  sorrow  cannot  be  aroused  by  such  misfortunes,  and 
that  genuine  sympathy  is  not  felt  as  an  assuaging  balsam, 
but  the  balsam  is  too  apt  to  be  mingled  with  the  corroding 
poison  which  is  called  malicious  joy  (^Schadenfreude),    The 
only  satisfactory  mode  of  expressing  sympathy  would  perhaps 
be  to  give  a  laughing  spectator  a  blow  in  the  face.     We  see, 
sympathetic   pleasure   and  envy,  compassion  and  malicious 
joy,  are  produced  by  the  same  causes.     Compassion  is  accom- 
panied in   consciousness  by   an  intensification  of  our    self- 
esteem  ;  it  flatters  our  self-love.     Sympathetic  pleasure  arises 
in   conjunction   with   a   diminution   of    the   self-feeling,   or, 
rather,  it  ought  so  to  arise :  for  envy  extinguishes  the  pleasure. 
Compassion,  on  the  other  hand,  may  exist  together  with  an 
intensification  of  the  feeling  of  power,  or  self-love.     Genuine 
malice  of  course  also  extinguishes  pity,  but  a  feeling  of  true 
pity  may  easily  arise  in  connection  with  the  feeling  of  per- 
sonal security  and  superiority.    Hence  real  sympathetic  pleas- 
ure  (Mitfreude)  is  rare,  while  compassion   (^Mitleid)  is   not 
at  all  rare.     And  for  this  very  i-eason  the   ability  to  sym- 
pathize with  another's  joys  is  a  much  surer  sign  of  a  pure 
and  unselfish  nature  than  any  other.     Goethe,  who  was  not  in 


the  habit  of  praising  himself,  thus  boasted  of  his  lack  of  envy, 
when  accused  of  egoism : 

Ich  Egoist  I  —  Wenn  ich's  nicht  besser  wiisste  I 
Der  Neid,  das  ist  der  Egoiste. 
.  Und  was  ich  auch  fiir  Wege  geloffen, 

Auf'm  Neidpfad  habt  ihr  mich  nie  betroflPen.i 

And  to  the  compassionate  souls  who,  even  to  this  day,  find 
fault  with  him  for  not  having  cared  enough  for  the  sorrows 
of  others,  he  dedicates  the  following  xenion : 

Aiif  das  empfindsame  Volk  hab'  ich  nie  was  gehalten ;  es  werdeii, 
Kommt  die  Gelegenheit  nur,  schlechte  Gesellen  daraus.* 

Indeed,  pity  may  go  with  all  the  seven  sins  against  the 
Holy  Ghost.  The  Pharisee  probably  silently  or  openly  added 
to  his  prayer  —  God  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other 
men  are,  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers,  or  even  as  this  pub- 
lican, —  the  word  of  pity  :  Of  course,  I  am  sorry  for  the  poor 
devil  over  there  ;  it  is  his  own  fault,  no  doubt,  but  how  easy 
it  is  to  make  the  first  misstep,  when  one  is  not  eternally  on 
one's  guard !  All  gossip  is  carried  on  in  a  tone  of  pity  and 
listened  to  with  an  attitude  of  pity.  Many  a  sentimental 
woman  who  has  too  much  pity  to  tread  upon  a  caterpillar, 
will,  without  compunction,  wound  a  neighbor  to  the  quick 
by  her  calumnies,  or  poison  her  husband's  life  with  her  con- 
stant bickerings  and  baseness. 

2.   The  sympathetic  feelings,  and   especially  compassion, 

1  P  an  egoist?    I  know  that  I  am  not  one.   Envj  is  an  egoist.    And  on  what- 
ever ways  I  may  have  strayed,  you  have  never  found  me  on  the  path  of  envy  .J 

2  [I  have  never  had  any  respect  for  the  sentimentalists ;  they  always  turn  out 
to  be  wicked  knaves  when  the  opportunity  offers.]— In  order  to  appreciate  Goethe 
as  a  man,  compare  his  reception  by  the  older  celebrities  in  German  literature, 
e.  g.,  Leasing  or  Klopstock,  with  his  attitude  towards  the  younger  poets,  e.  g.', 
towards  Schiller,  when  the  latter  appeared  upon  the  scene.  (See  Victor  Hehn,' 
Gedanken  iiber  Goethe,  in  the  essay :  Goethe  und  das  Publikum)  Goethe  was  not 
a  saint,  and  they  are  not  doing  him  a  kindness  who  insist  on  making  an  angel 
of  him,  tliey  simply  provoke  the  advocatus  diaboli,  such  a  one  as  has  appeared 
against  him  in  the  person  of  Father  Baumgartner.  In  spite  of  all,  Goethe 
was  a  good  and  great  man. 


•I 


696  DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 

evidently  have  the  same  significance  for  conduct  that  all 
feelings  have :  their  object  is  to  guide  the  will  in  the  business 
of  self-preservation.  Just  as  idiopathic  pain  impels  the  indi- 
vidual to  remove  the  evil  or  the  disturbance  which  threatens 
his  own  life,  so  compassion  tends  to  determine  the  will  to 
remove  the  causes  of  pain  from  the  lives  of  others.  In  com- 
passion the  solidarity  of  collective  bodies  manifests  itself  :  the 
collective  body  feels  the  disturbance  which  first  attacks  a 
member  as  a  menace  to  itself,  and  is  thereby  impelled  to 
react  in  a  manner  conducive  to  its  own  self-preservation. 

In  human  life,  however,  feeling-impulses  are  never  adequate 
guides  of  action,  but  require  the  regulative  control  of  reason. 
We  say  of  love  and  anger  that  they  are  blind.  This  is  also 
true  of  pity.  Therefore  this  impulse,  no  less  than  the  selfish 
impulses,  must,  in  order  to  promote  welfare,  be  educated  by 
reason,  guided  by  wisdom.  The  virtue  which  thus  arises,  the 
general  fundamental  form  of  the  social  virtues,  may  be  called 
benevolence  and  defined  as  that  habit  of  the  will  and  mode 
of  conduct  which  tends  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  sur- 
roundings  by  hindering  disturbances  and  producing  favorable 

conditions  of  life. 

In  benevolence,  compassion  (Mit-leiden)  is  overshadowed 
by  welldoing,  beneficence  iWohUhun),  The  benevolent  and 
beneficent  man  prevents  or  alleviates  the  sufferings  of  others 
without  always  having  to  feel  compassion  himself.  Nay,  a 
certain  power  of  resistance  is  as  much  a  part  of  benevolence  as 
it  is  a  part  of  courage  to  be  able  to  resist  idiopathic  pain,  or  a 
part  of  temperance  to  be  able  to  resist  the  temptations  of  sense. 
We  do  not  expect  a  physician  to  suffer  with  the  patient  all 
the  pains  which  he  witnesses  or  perhaps  causes  himself.  On 
the  contrary,  a  certain  obduracy  on  his  part  is  the  condition 
of  beneficent  action  ;  his  compassion  would  obscure  the  clear- 
ness  of  his  judgment  and  interfere  with  the  steadiness  of 
his  movements.  It  is  well  known  that  physicians  do  not 
like  to  treat  their  nearest  relatives  because  their  pity  in- 


COMPASSION  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


597 


terferes  with  their  skill.  —  But  not  only  is  freedom  from 
pity  needed  to  give  the  physician  greater  security  in  the  prac- 
tice of  his  art;  it  also  has  a  directly  beneficial  influence. 
The  physician  enters  the  sick-room  and  makes  his  examina- 
tion and  gives  his  orders  with  business-like  serenity ;  he  does 
not  pity  nor  lament.  His  calmness  has  the  most  wholesome 
effect ;  some  of  it  is  communicated  to  the  relatives  and  the 
patient ;  we  feel  as  if  we  were  in  the  presence  of  a  power 
against  which  the  evil  is  powerless.  On  the  other  hand 
consider  the  influence  of  visits  from  relatives  and  friends ! 
Frightened  by  the  appearance  of  the  patient  and  overwhelmed 
with  pity,  they  break  out  into  tears  and  complaints,  and  so 
increase  his  sufferings  by  their  compassion  and  excitement. 

The  same  thing  happens  in  other  cases.  A  tender  mother 
doubly  suffers  the  pains  which  her  child  feels.  If  the  child 
falls  and  hurts  himself,  she  is  overcome  with  pity.  The 
result  is  that  the  child  now  really  begins  to  feel  the  pain  ;  he 
does  not  cry  out  until  he  has  been  pitied,  when  he  regards  him- 
self as  an  object  of  pity.  And  the  permanent  effect  of  such 
treatment  is  a  sort  of  whining  nature  (  Wehleidigkeit\  which 
is  not  a  pleasant  endowment  for  life.  Another  mother,  who 
loves  her  child  just  as  much,  bandages  the  wound  if  neces- 
sary, diverts  the  child's  attention  from  the  accident ;  and  lo  ! 
the  pain  actually  disappears  when  it  is  resisted.  As  a 
permanent  consequence,  the  child,  in  a  measure,  becomes 
hardened  to  such  things,  and  so  receives  the  best  possible 
equipment  for  life  that  education  can  give.  To  love  one's 
children  is  natural,  and  neither  a  virtue  nor  an  art,  but  to 
educate  children  is  a  great  and  difficult  art,  which  demands, 
first  of  all,  the  ability  to  control  one's  natural  tender  im- 
pulses. We  must  not  let  our  children  know  how  much  we 
love  them,  says  an  old  wise  maxim,  which,  however,  does  not 
suit  the  sentimentalism  and  vanity  of  modern  mothers. 

Indeed,  the  same  is  true  of  every  form  of  assistance  that 
human  beings  can  render  each  other.    The  sure  and  steady 


598 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


If  I 

ni 
t' 


It*"! 

hi, 


hand  that  helps  and  guides  always  presupposes  that  the  per- 
son behind  it  lending  aid  is  not  overwhelmed  by  the  sufferings 
of  others.  In  charity  work,  for  example,  blind  compassion 
results  in  evil :  we  spoil  the  recipients  of  our  charity,  and  en- 
courage them  to  make  demands,  and  when  we  can  no  longer, 
or  are  no  longer  willing,  to  satisfy  these  claims,  we  break  out 
into  complaints  of  ingratitude. 

We  may  therefore  say :  Compassion  is  the  natural  basis  of 
the  social  virtue  of  active  benevolence,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
a  virtue  itself,  nor  even,  as  Schopenhauer  asserts,  the  absolute 
standard  of  the  moral  worth  of  a  man.  Like  every  phase  of 
impulsive  life,  it  must  be  educated  and  disciplined  by  reason ; 
in  the  rational  will  it  is  both  realized  and  limited,  —  realized  in 
so  far  as  it  attains  to  its  end,  the  furtherance  of  human  wel- 
fare, limited  in  so  far  as  it  is  prevented  from  doing  harm. 
And  hence  wc  may  accept  what  Spinoza,  agreeing  with  the 
Stoics,  says,  that  the  wise  man  will  strive  to  rid  himself  of 
compassion,  and,  as  far  as  human  nature  permits,  to  do  well 
and  to  rejoice  (bene  agere  et  laetari)} 

Perhaps  such  wisdom  is  more  common  among  women  than 
among  men.  Courage  in  suffering,  patience,  a  specifically 
feminine  virtue,  enables  one  calmly  to  bear  first  one's  own 
and  then  the  sufferings  of  others.  The  capable  woman  is  not 
overwhelmed  by  her  own  pains,  nor  will  she  permit  herself  to 
be  overcome  by  the  pains  of  others.  Calmly  and  deliberately, 
energetically  and  helpfully,  she  attacks  the  evil  and  conquers  it. 


1  Ethics,  IV.,  50. 


V   CHAPTER  IX 


i^ 


JUSTICE  1 

We  distinguished  between  two  phases  of  benevolence:  a 
negative  phase  —  not  to  retard  welfare ;  and  a  positive  phase 
—  to  promote  welfare.  These  two  phases,  regarded  as  special 
virtues,  give  us  the  virtues  oi  justice  and  love  of  neighbor. 

Justice,  as  a  moral  habit,  is  that  tendency  of  the  will  and 
mode  of  conduct  which  refrains  from  disturbing  the  lives  and 
interests  of  others,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  hinders  such  in- 
terference on  the  part  of  others.  This  virtue  springs  from  the 
individual's  respect  for  his  fellows  as  ends  in  themselves  and 
as  his  coequals.  The  different  spheres  of  interests  may  be 
roughlv  classified  as  follows  :  body  and  life ;  the  family,  or 
the  extended  individual  life ;  property,  or  the  totality  of  the 
instruments  of  action ;  honor,  or  the  ideal  existence ;  and 
finally  freedom,  or  the  possibility  of  fashioning  one's  life  as  an 
end  in  itself.  The  law  defends  these  different  spheres,  thus 
giving  rise  to  a  corresponding  number  of  spheres  of  rights,  each 
being  protected  by  a  prohibition :  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  commit 
adultery,  steal,  bear  false  witness  against  the  honor  of  thy 
neighbor,  and  interfere  with  his  liberty.     To  violate  the  rights, 

1  [Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  V. ;  Paley,  Bk.  11,  chs.  IX.  ff.;  Bk.  III. ;  Mill,  Utilita^ 
rianism,  ch.  V. ;  Sidgwick,  Bk.  III.,  chs.  V.,  VI. ;  Spencer,  InducUons,  chs.  III.- 
VI.;  Justice;  Stephen,  ch.  V.  (V.) ;  Jhering,  vol.  I.,  ch.  VIII.;  Porter,  Part 
II.,  chs.  VIII.,  IX.,  XV. ;  Holland,  Jurisprudence,  chs.  VII.  ff. ;  Wundt,  Part  I., 
ch.IIL,  4,  Part  III.,  ch.  IV.,  5  ;  Bowne,  chs.  VIII.,  X. ;  Fowler  and  Wilson,  Part 
II.*  ch.'  III. ;  Hyslop,  ch.  X. ;  Smyth,  Part  II..  ch.  III. ;  Mackenzie,  ch.  X. ; 
Seth,  Part  II.,  ch.  II.  ;  Dorner,  pp.  382-395 ;  Taylor,  The  Individual  and  the 
Stale;  Ritchie,  Natural  Rights;  TOunies,  Gemeinschajl  und  GeseUschafi,  Bk. 
III.;  Runze,  §64.  — Tr.] 


hi 
hi 


j( 


!' 


^1! 

If    I 


600 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


1  -rfs 


4(9 


to  interfere  with  the  interests  of  others,  is  injustice.  All  in- 
justice is  ultimately  directed  against  the  life  of  the  neighbor  ; 
it  is  an  open  avowal  that  the  latter  is  not  an  end  in  itself, 
having  the  same  value  as  the  individual's  own  life.  The 
general  formula  of  the  duty  of  justice  may  therefore  be 
stated  as  follows:  Bo  no  wrong  yourself,  and  permit  no 
wrong  to  he  done,  so  far  as  lies  in  your  power;  or,  expressed 
positively :  Respect  and  protect  the  right. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  first  part  of  this  dual  formula : 
Refrain  from  doing  wrong  —  and  the  virtue  of  rectitude  or 
probity  to  which  it  gives  rise  and  which  is  often  regarded  as 
the  whole  of  justice.     Not  to  do  injustice  is  usually  considered 
the  least  that  morality  demands.     But  justice,  in  this  sense,  is 
by  no  means  the  easiest  among  the  virtues,  nay,  perhaps  it  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult,  because  it  is  the  most  humble,  and 
does  not  flatter  our  vanity  by  its  grandeur  and  splendor,  like 
magnanimity,  liberality,  or  courage.     Justice  enjoins  limita- 
tion of  self  by  submission  to  a  general  rule.   Man  is  by  nature, 
like  all  animals,  intent  upon  self-preservation  and  self-asser- 
tion.   Every  creature  naturally  acts  according  to  the  maxim 
that  he  is  the  centre  of  the  universe,  that  all  things  are  means 
for  him  and  his  purposes.     This  principle  governs  the  attitude 
of  animals  towards  each  other ;  it  also  governs  our  attitude 
towards  them.    We  draw  the  final  consequence  of  this  prin- 
ciple when  we  kill  and  devour  them,  thereby  declaring  in 
unmistakable  terms  that  we  are  the  end  and  they  the  means. 
The  natural  man's  attitude  towards  his  fellows  does  not  dif- 
fer from  this.    The  child  is,  at  the  beginning  of  its  life,  naively 
inconsiderate.     It  has  regard  only  for  itself,  it   does  what 
pleases  it,  without  being  seriously  concerned  about  the  effect 
of  its  behavior  upon  others.     Only  gradually  does  it  come  to 
understand  that  its  action  has  consequences  not  only  for 
itself  but  for  others.     Its  attention  is  drawn  to  this  fact  by 
the  reaction  caused  by  its  acts  in  others.     It  deprives  another 
child  of  its  plaything ;  that  child  becomes  angry  and  reacts 


JUSTICE 


601 


accordingly.     We  may  note  a  look  of  surprise  on  the  face  of 
the   first   child;   only  gradually,  after  experiencing   similar 
treatment  from  others,  does  it  begin  to  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  this  surprise.     Its  teachers,  too,  help  it  to  interpret  the 
facts.     So  the  individual  gradually  acquires  the  habit  of  con- 
sidering the  influence  of  his  own  conduct  upon  the  interests  of 
others.     Where  the  necessary  experience  is  wanting  or  in- 
adequate, we  frequently  find  a  trace  of  this  primitive  incon- 
siderateness.      An    only   child  is  in  danger  of    remaining 
inconsiderate,  obstinate,   and   dogmatic   for  the   rest   of  its 
life ;  it  does  not  receive  the  effective  training  in  justice  which 
brothers  and  sisters  impart  to  each  other.    The  danger  is  still 
greater  in  the  case  of  persons  who  grow  up  as  privileged  favor- 
ites, persons  who  are  always  right.     It  is  most  difficult  for 
the  children  of  princes  and  great  lords  to  learn  the  lesson  of 
justice.     Even  after  reaching  the  period  of  mature  manhood, 
they  often  show  that  they  have  not  liad  the  experiences  in 
their  youth  necessary  to  teach  them  justice  in  the  elementary 
form:   their  encroachments  upon  the   rights  of  others   and 
their  ill-humor  have  never  been  opposed,  and  so  they  fail  to 
discover  the  existence  of  other  wills  beside  their  own. 

The  real  test  of  a  just  disposition  is  a  person's  attitude 
towards  enemies  and  opponents,  personal  or  collective.     We 
are  naturally  inclined  to  look  upon  everything  as  right  that 
is  done  against  an  enemy;  enemies  may  be  despised,  dis- 
graced, hated,  and  abused.     And  it  is  almost  still  more  diffi- 
cult to  be  just  to  collective  enemies,  party  opponents,  etc., 
than  to  personal  enemies.     Injustice  here  assumes  the  form 
of  fidelity  to  principle,  loyalty  to  colleagues  and  friends ;  the 
good  cause  demands  that  we  subscribe  to  it  unconditionally, 
and  that  we  prove  our  sincerity  by  inflicting  all  possible  in- 
jury upon  our  opponents.     The  attempt  to  judge   without 
prejudice  and  to  recognize  the  good  in  the  other  side  is  cried 
down   by  partisans    as  the   beginning  of  apostasy.     Hence 
partisanship  is  the  deadly  foe  of  justice ;  we  find  this  truth 


602 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


603 


[i,\ 


l\ 


r'i 


■  V, 


^i 


corroborated  in  every  field,  in  political,  ecclesiastical,  and 
social,  as  well  as  in  literary  and  scientific  partisanship.  For 
this  reason  men  of  finer  sensibilities  are  not  fitted  for  parti- 
sanship, and  shun  it  like  the  plague. 

This  is  one  side  of  justice ;  he  is  a  just  man  who  limits  his 
acts  so  that  their  consequences  will  not  interfere  with  the 
interests  of  others ;  he  is  unjust  who  does  not  do  so,  or 
consciously  does  the  opposite. 

The  other,  active,  side  of  justice  is  the  non-sufferance,  the 
warding  off  of  injustice,  first,  of  the  injustice  done  to  others, 
then  also  of  that  done  to  self.     Language  characterizes  this 
phase  of  justice  as  the  sense  of  Justice.     In  a  certain  measure, 
it  is  the  easier  duty.    To  suffer  wrong  inflames  us ;  not  only 
does  the  wrong  which  I  myself  suffer  call  forth  anger  and  the 
impulse  to  revenge,  but  the  wrong  which  is  inflicted  upon  a 
third  person  also  arouses  in  the  disinterested  spectator  a  vio- 
lent emotion,  indignation,  which  may  be  defined  as  disinter- 
ested anger  at  the  injustice  suffered  by  another,  and  which 
impels  us  to  take  the  part  of  the  injured  person,  and  to  punish 
the  evil-doer  for  the  wrong.     In  the  impulse  of  retaliation  we 
have  the  instinctive  basis  of  public  punishment.    In  the  latter 
the  sympathy  of  the  disinterested  party  for  the  victim  as 
against  the  offender,  is  systematized  and  made  effective.     In 
punishment  the  community  reacts  against  the  attack  made 
upon  one  of  its  members,  and  defeats  it. 

2.  The  significance  of  justice  for  human  conduct  is  shown 
by  the  effects  of  injustice.  The  immediate  effect  of  injustice 
is  that  it  disturbs  or  destroys  the  welfare  of  the  person  against 
whom  it  is  done.  There  are  also  indirect  and  secondary 
effects.  Injustice  creates  strife.  The  injured  person  seeks  to 
re-establish  his  interests  at  the  expense  of  his  opponent,  and 
to  revenge  himself  for  the  injury  suffered.  The  aggressor  in 
turn  defends  himself,  and  so  a  state  of  war  arises,  which  has 
the  tendency  to  spread  to  all  those  who  are  related  either  to 
the  victim  or  to  the  aggressor  by  ties  of  friendship  or  common 


interests.  —Another  effect  inseparable  from  injustice  is  that  it 
produces  a  feeling  of  insecurity/,  not  only  in  the  person  who 
suffers  it,  but  in  all  those  who  witness  it.  What  has  happened 
once  may  happen  again,  at  any  time ;  what  has  happened  to 
one  may  happen  to  all— this  is  the  instinctive  inference  forced 
upon  all  by  injustice  and  violence.  Injustice  therefore  tends 
to  destroy  the  state  of  peace  and  security,  and  to  substitute  for 
it  the  state  of  war  and  insecurity. 

This  explains  the  perniciousness  of  injustice.    A  condition 
of  insecurity  paralyzes  life  and  action,  wherever  it  extends. 
Human  conduct  differs  from  that  of  animals,  the  conduct  of 
civilized  men  from  that  of  savages,  in  that  it  is  connected  and 
systematic ;   the   animal  lives  in  the  present,  man  reckons 
with  the  future.     But  arbitrary  interferences  on  the  part  of 
others  render  all  calculations  of  the  future  illusory.     Injustice 
as  a  lawless  element  prevents  all  systematic  activity  and  de- 
liberate planning.     If  it  can  break  in  upon  us  at  any  moment, 
it  will  be  advisable  to  confine  our  actions  to  the  present,  and 
not  to  sacrifice  certainty  to  uncertainty.     Injustice,  therefore, 
tends  to  undermine  the  foundations  of  truly  human  life.     A 
state  of  war  has  the  same  effect :  it  is  necessarily  a  state  of 
insecurity  for  all  those  who  actively  or  passively  participate 
in  it.     It  has  the^  further  effect  of  consuming  and  paralyzing 
the   powers   of  the   participants,  and    consequently   to   that 
extent,  hinders  them  from  solving  the  problems  of  individual 
and  social  life. 

Justice  is,  therefore,  good  because  it  has  the  tendency  to 
establish  and  maintain  a  state  of  security,  the  precondition  of 
systematized,  i.  e.,  human,  activity,  and  peace,  the  precondition 
of  social  life.  Injustice  is  bad,  as  a  mode  of  conduct  and 
habit  of  the  will,  because  it  tends  to  destroy  these  foundations 
of  human  welfare. 

3.  We  can  now  demonstrate  the  teleological  necessity  of 
positive  right.  Positive  right  has  its  place  in  the  state.  The 
state  represents,  first  of  all,  the  united  power  of  a  nation.     By 


'J 


I 


604  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

placing  itself  under  the  protection  of  might,  the  right  becomes 
a  power  in  the  world.    In  law  the  state  formulates  the  right 
as  the  expression  of  its  will,  and  invests  it  with  its  power 
to  overcome  the  resistance  of  individuals.     The  positive  right 
may  be  defined  as  a  system  of  rules  by  which  the  interests 
and  functions  of  the  individual  members  of  the  state  are  differ- 
entiated from  each  other,  and  the  spheres  thus  limited  are 
placed  under  the  protection  of  the  power  of  the  state.     The 
penal  right  defines  the  limits  of  the  spheres  from  the  negative 
side ;  it  determines  which  acts  shall  be  regarded  as  encroach- 
ments or  violations,  and  therefore  punished.    The  private  right 
determines  them  from  the  positive  side ;  it  defines  the  spheres 
-in  family-rights  and  property-rights  -  within  which  the 
individual  may  move  and  still  enjoy  the  protection  of   the 

The  object  and  effect  of  the  positive  right  and  the  protection 
of  the  same  by  compulsion  and  punishment  is  the  prevention 
of  wrong,  hence  the  establishment  of  a  state  of  peace   and 
security  for  all  the  members  of  the  commumty.     It  is  the 
business  of  the  system  of  rights,  on  the  one  hand,  to  assist 
the  individual  in  regulating  his  conduct  with  respect  to  others 
spheres  of  action ;  it  saves  him  the  trouble,  or  at  least  facil- 
itates the  process,  of  making  difficult  and  complicated  com- 
putations  as  to  what  he  may  do  without  injuring  the  just 
ricrhts  of  others.     It  likewise   checks  his   inclination  to  do 
wrong,  by  threatening  evil  consequences,  and  so  gives  a  cer- 
tain steadfastness  to  his  conduct  and  hindei-s  him  from  in- 
fringing upon  the  rights  of  others.     On  the  other  hand,  it 
also    protects    him,  within    his    restricted   sphere,    against 
encroachments  on  the  part  of  others.    The  system  of  rights, 
therefore,  brings   a   certain  degree  of  objective  justice    or 
legality  into  the  life  and  conduct   of  the   members  of    the 
legal  community,  and  maintains  it. 

But  why   is  compulsion   exercised   here   while   so  many 
objectionable  and  pernicious  modes  of  conduct,  like  intern- 


JUSTICE 


605 


perance,  dissipation,  ingratitude,  mendacity,  do  not  occa- 
sion any  interference  on  the  part  of  the  community  with  the 
individual?  This  is  due  to  the  specific  nature  of  injustice. 
The  pernicious  effects  of  injustice  directly  affect  the  com- 
munity and  its  conditions  of  life.  Injustice,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  has  the  tendency  to  produce  a  state  of  war 
among  the  members  of  society.  Internal  war,  however,  is 
the  specific  disease  which  destroys  communities ;  it  has  the 
same  effect,  to  use  an  old  illustration,  as  the  revolt  of  the 
members  of  an  organic  body  against  each  other  would  have. 
A  tribe  or  a  people  that  suffers  from  this  disease  is,  to  that 
extent,  less  capable  of  life.  Other  things  being  equal,  a 
second  tribe  or  people  is  precisely  so  much  superior  to  it 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  as  it  is  less  exposed  to  internal 
friction,  or  as  its  arrangements  for  preserving  internal  peace 
are  more  perfect  and  effective.  This  is  the  teleological  ne- 
cessity which  has  impelled  every  nation  to  develop  a  legal 
order  and  the  technical  means  for  administering  the  same, 
and  which  encourages  it  constantly  to  improve  the  system. 
All  other  offences  and  vices  are  dealt  with  by  custom,  educa- 
tion, spiritual  ministration,  and  the  personal  insight  of  the 
individual.  By  opposing  injustice  a  nation  defeats  attacks 
upon  the  conditions  of  its  own  existence. 

The  history  of  positive  right  universally  follows  this  plan. 
Every  right  is  a  form  of  protection  against  injustice,  the 
destroyer  of  peace  and  social  life,  and  as  such  adapted  to  the 
actual  state,  intelligence,  and  good  will  of  the  society  pro- 
ducing it.  Blood  revenge  was  the  primitive  form  of  resisting 
encroachments;  the  clan  reacted  against  injury  as  a  unit, 
by  holding  the  clan  of  the  aggressor,  as  a  unit,  responsible 
for  the  acts  of  every  member  thereof.  This  form  of  right 
gradually  yielded  to  a  higher  form  of  tribal  and  national 
right.  The  family-feud,  which  grows  out  of  blood  revenge, 
was  against  the  interests  of  the  people,  it  weakened  them 
against  the  external  foe  and  disturbed  peaceful  intercourse 
within.      Hence     it    was    at    first    regulated    by    "fines" 


606 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


607 


1: 


§4    > 


[Wehrgeld]  —  a  system  in  which  an  officer  of  the  law  as 
the  representative  of  the  king,  who  is  the  guardian  of  order, 
co-operated  —  and  at  last  self-help  and  personal  revenge 
were  entirely  done  away  with. 

4.  This  also  explains  the  right  of  the  community  to  com- 
pel lawful  behavior  on  the  part  of  the  individual  by  force 
and  punishment.  It  has  a  right  to  compel  and  punish 
because  it  has  a  right  to  preserve  itself.  And  this  right  is 
at  the  same  time  a  duti/,  because  self-preservation  is  the 
first  and  almost  only  duty  of  the  community. 

The  explanation  of  the  penal  right  forms  the  subject  of 
endless  debate.^  Here  as  everywhere  in  practical  philosophy 
we  have  the  two  opposing  views  which  we  have  termed  the 
teleological  and  intuitional-formalistic.  The  latter  attempts 
to  justify  punishment  as  the  immediately  necessary,  ethical- 
logical  consequence  of  the  crime ;  the  former  explains  it  by 
its  effects  upon  human  welfare. 

Here,  too,  Kant  is  responsible  for  the  reaction  against  the 
teleological  conception.  "  The  penal  law," he  says,"  is  a  cate- 
gorical imperative."  "  Judicial  punishment  can  never  be  in- 
flicted merely  as  a  means  of  promoting  another  good  for  the 
criminal  himself  or  for  civil  society,  but  must  always  be  im- 
posed because  he  has  broken  a  law ; "  —  and  he  cries  "  woe  " 
upon  all  such  as  go  through  the  serpentine  windings  of  the 
eudaemonistic  theory .^  And  Hegel  adopts  the  same  view, 
adding  the  usual  statements  concerning  the  superficiality 
and  triviality  of  those  who  employ  their  "understanding" 
in  these  matters,  which  is  inadequate,  because  the  "con- 
cept" is  what  we  are  after.  He  deduces  punishment  as 
the  logical  abrogation  of  the  violation  of  right:  "The 
violation  of  right  as  right  is,  indeed,  a  positive,  external 

1  [See  in  addition  to  the  works  already  mentioned :  Spinoza,  Preface  to  Part 
IV. ;  Bentham,  chs.  XIII.-XVII. ;  Maine,  Ancient  Law,  ch.  II. ;  Hoffding, 
XXXIX. ;  Bowne,  ch.  X. ;  Wundt,  Part  III.,  ch.  III.,  5 ;  Nietzsofce,  Genmlogie, 
70  ff. ;  Runze ,  §§  76  ff. ;  Proal,  Le  crime  et  la  peine ;  Criminal  Statistics  in 
Oettingen,   §§  37,  38,  39,   57.  — Tr.] 

2  liechtslehre,  §  49. 


affair,  but  it  is  naught  in  itself.  The  manifestation  of  its 
nullity  is  the  annihilation  of  that  violation,  which  likewise 
appears  in  external  form.  This  brings  out  the  reality  of 
right;  its  form  of  necessity  is  mediated  by  the  abrogation 
of  its  violation."  Offering  violence  to  the  criminal  will  is 
"  the  annulling  of  the  crime,  which  otherwise  would  main- 
tain its  own  validity,  and  the  restoration  of  the  right.  "^ 

It  is  one  of  the  strangest  psychological  riddles  that  the 
turbid  profundity  of  such  reflections  should  have  been  mis- 
taken by  many  of  Hegel's  contemporaries  as  the  solution 
of  the  problem ;  as  though  plays  upon  words  and  ambiguities, 
like  nullity  and  abrogation,  were  thoughts !  For  can  we  affect 
the  past  and  make  naught  what  has  been  done  ?  And  if  ab- 
rogation and  negation  cannot  mean  this,  what  do  they  mean  ? 
That  even  if  a  thing  did  happen,  it  ought  not  to  have 
happened  ?  And  are  criminals  being  hung  and  beheaded,  im- 
prisoned and  deported,  simply  in  order  to  bring  this  out  ?  — 
But  here,  too,  the  intuitional-formalistic  theory  receives  support 
from  common-sense.  The  latter,  too,  will  answer  the  ques- 
tion, Why  is  the  criminal  punished?  by  saying:  Well,  of 
course,  because  it  is  right,  and  because  he  deserves  punish- 
ment ;  what  is  there  so  remarkable  in  that  ?  So  say  also  Kant 
and  Hegel :  There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  this ;  punishment 
is  demanded  by  the  categorical  imperative ;  punishment  is  the 
logically-necessary  consequence  of  wrong ! 

It  would  be  futile  to  attempt  to  dissuade  philosophers  who 
are  in  love  with  their  formula  from  believing  that  it  contains 
the  answer  to  all  the  problems  of  the  universe  and  of  life. 
But  it  will  perhaps  be  possible  to  convince  healthy  common- 
sense  that  this  answer  does  not  entirely  settle  the  matter. 
So  the  criminal  is  punished  because  he  deserves  punishment  ? 
Admirable,  and  undoubtedly  true  !  But  would  there  be  pun- 
ishment if  it  had  absolutely  no  effect  and  could  have  none  in 

1  Naturrecht,  §§  90  ff.  [Translated  in  part  by  J.  M.  Sterrett,  The  Ethics  of 
Hegel,  1893,  pp.  94  ff.  —  Tb.] 


%  . 


608 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


609 


PI'; 


the  very  nature  of  things  ?  Would  thieves  be  lodged  in  jails 
and  penitentiaries  if  that  did  not  prevent  them  from  stealing, 
either  during  their  imprisonment  or  afterwards,  or  at  least, 
if  no  one  else  were  thereby  deterred  from  theft  ?  That  is 
hardly  probable ;  society  would  scarcely  undertake  to  build 
prisons  and  penitentiaries  if  the  existence  of  such  institu- 
tions had  absolutely  no  influence  upon  the  annual  number  of 
robberies  and  burglaries.  The  victim  of  the  criminal  might, 
perhaps,  still  desire  punishment  to  be  inflicted,  provided  he 
considered  confinement  in  the  penitentiary  as  an  evil ;  other- 
wise, he  would  have  no  interest  in  the  matter;  the  mere 
"manifestation  and  abrogation  of  the  wrong"  would  not 

relieve  his  anger. 

The  "  retrospective  '*  theory  of  punishment,  then,  seems  to 
be  inadequate.  Punishment  is  inflicted  because  a  crime  has 
been  committed  (quia  peccatum  esf);  very  true,  but  this 
because  is  not  really  the  ground,  but  only  the  occasion  of  the 
punishment.  The  ground  is  to  be  sought  in  the  effect,  and 
the  effect  is  not  in  the  past  but  in  the  future :  punishment 
is  an  evil  which  is  inflicted  upon  the  criminal  by  the  authori- 
ties of  the  state  in  order  that  crime  may  not  be  committed 
in  the  future  {ne  peccetur).  People  cover  up  a  well  because  a 
child  has  fallen  into  it,  and  in  order  that  it  may  not  happen 
again  ;  they  build  dams  because  the  river  inundates  the  fields, 
and  in  order  that  it  may  not  happen  again.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  in  order  that,  the  because  would  not  determine  them  to  act 
in  the  manner  indicated.  If  there  were  no  future,  there  would 
be  absolutely  no  effects  and  no  acts  ;  although  it  may  be  con- 
ceded that  a  tendency  to  do  afterwards  what  ought  to  have 
been  done  before,  even  though  it  can  do  no  more  good,  occa- 
sionally expresses  itself  in  attempts  at  action.  When  the 
maid  has  broken  the  dish,  she  puts  the  pieces  together  again, 
and  says,  This  is  the  way  it  was ! 

It  is  encouraging  to  note  that  the  science  of  criminal  juris- 
prudence is  beginning  to  abandon  the  purely  formalistic  con- 


ception of  Speculative  Philosophy,  and  is  turning  to  the  teleo- 
logical  view.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  influence  of  Hegel  with 
his  contempt  for  the  "intelligible,"  i.e., the  causal-teleological 
view,  was  particularly  bad  in  this  field.  It  led  to  a  total 
neglect  of  the  question  concerning  the  effect  of  punishment ; 
science,  it  was  held,  had  solely  to  determine  the  right.  The 
main  thing  was  to  ascertain  the  number  of  years  and  days  in 
jail  or  prison  which  ought  to  be  imposed  for  each  particular 
delict.  No  one  ever  inquired  whether  these  punishments  were 
suitable  means  for  preventing  crimes.  The  legislator  fixed 
certain  general  penalties,  the  judge  applied  them  to  the 
particular  cases,  and  this  settled  the  matter,  justice  was 
satisfied,  the  crime  expiated.  The  criminal  was  then  turned 
over  to  the  authorities  whose  business  it  was  to  execute  the 
sentence.  And  from  this  quarter  came  the  opposition  to  the 
theory.  It  could  not  escape  the  notice  of  sharpsighted  and 
conscientious  men  that  especially  the  short  terms  of  imprison- 
ment —  though  they  might  satisfy  "  the  idea  of  the  right " 
and  serve  to  ''  make  manifest "  the  wrong  —  were  by  no 
means  particularly  fitted  to  hinder  crime,  nay,  were  wholly 
ineffective  in  many  cases;  that  they  did  the  very  opposite. 
Short  terms  of  imprisonment,  without  special  physical  priva- 
tions or  inconveniences,  hardly  deter  the  habitual  criminal,  who 
has  no  social  position  to  lose;  nay,  he  frequently  seeks  tem- 
porary refuge  in  the  penitentiary.  For  the  accidental  crimi- 
nal, on  the  other  hand,  who  violates  the  law  in  consequence  of 
poverty,  opportunity,  temptation,  or  ignorance  of  the  law,  the 
prison  often  becomes  a  school  for  crime.  Here,  in  the  com- 
pany of  old  and  experienced  criminals,  he  loses  his  reverence 
for  custom  and  law,  he  forms  acquaintances  who  afterwards 
cling  to  him  and  initiate  him  into  all  kinds  of  crimes;  he 
loses  his  self-respect,  his  civil  honor,  and  his  ability  to  make 
an  honest  living.  In  this  way  his  ability  to  resist  crime  is 
weakened  on  all  sides  ;  he  begins  to  develop  into  an  habitual 

criminal.  ..^ 

09 


610 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


611 


The  teleological  theory,  which  was  applied  to  the  entire 
field  of  jurisprudence  by  Jhering  in  his  work,  Der  Zweck  im 
Eecht,^  and  particularly  to  the  penal  law  by  F.  von  Liszt  in 
his  Lehrhueh  des  Strafrechts,^  calls  attention  to  the  causes 
of  crime  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  efficacy  of  punishment 
on  the  other,  and  will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  prove  more  success- 
ful in  coping  with  crime.     For  we  surely  all  agree  that  our 
system  of  criminal  jurisprudence  by  no  means  satisfies  all 
just  demands.     A  system  that  enables  thousands  of  profes- 
sional criminals  to  commit  the  same  crimes  over  and  over 
again,  which,  with  the  assistance  of  an  army  of  police  offi- 
cers, captures  them  each  time,  grants  them  long  and  tedious 
trials,  convicting  them  after  endless  sessions  and  at  great 
expense,  and  finally  imprisons  them  for  a  few  months  or 
years,  only  to  release  them  again  at  the  expiration  of  their 
terms,  for  a  few  months,  permitting  them  to  take  up  their 
calling  where  they  left  it  off,  and  to  propagate  their  kind  — 
such  a  system,  I  say,  can  hardly  be  designated  as  a  satisfac- 
tory  institution  for  the  protection  of  society  against  crime.  ^ 
And   it  is  equally  hard  to  understand  the  calmness  with 
which  our  criminal  authorities  contemplate  the  fact  that  four 
hundred  thousand  persons  are  sentenced  to  prison  in  Prussia 
annually ;  that  is,  that  one  out  of  every  seventy  has  been  in 
prison !    How  many  of  the  population  are  not  punished  ? 

1  The  Teleology  of  Law. 

a  Handbook  of  Criminal  Law,  3d  edition,  1888. 

8  In  the  FeuiUeton  of  a  Berlin  paper  I  once  read  the  following :  "  A  comical 
scene  may  frequently  be  witnessed  in  the  streets  during  these  Christmas  holidays. 
The  pickpocket  ia  now  diligently  engaged  in  shadowing  his  victims,  who  gather 
around  the  show-windows  of  the  stores.    But  we  may  regularly  notice,  not  far 
from  him,  a  man  of  the  law,  who  keeps  a  sharp  watch  upon  him,  and  catches  him 
by  the  collar  as  soon  as  he  puts  his  hands  into  people's  pockets."    The  writer 
evidentlv  intended  to  remind  the  citizen  of  Berlin  how  well  his  pocket  was  being 
guarded  :  behind  every  pickpocket  stands  the  detective,  who  is  simply  watching 
his  chance '  —  Would  the  burgomaster  or  the  aldermen  of  a  medieval  town  have 
regarded  this  scene  as  so  comical  ?     Would  they  not  rather  have  declared  with 
an  angry  oath :   Such  a  system  of  having  one  thousand  policemen  watch  one 
thousand  professional  thieves  seems  to   be  the   most   flagrant   madness,  even 
though  there  is  method  in  it ! 


Half  of  those  who  are  old  enough  to  serve  time  ?  And  what 
influence  have  these  conditions  upon  the  sentiments  of  the 
masses  in  reference  to  their  relation  to  the  state  ? 

Punishment  is  efficacious  in  many  ways:  it  may  reform 
the  criminal  by  bringing  him  to  his  senses  and  reconciling 
him  with  the  injured  person  and  society ;  it  acts  as  a  deter- 
rent,—  in  extreme  cases  by  eliminating  the  criminal,  that 
is,  by  killing  or  deporting  him ;  it  also  deters  all  others  who 
may  show  an  inclination  to  similar  crimes,  for  offences  com- 
mitted with  impunity  invite  imitation,  and  everybody  would 
feel  that  he  had  been  cheated  if  he  did  not  follow  suit.  All 
this  is  perfectly  self-evident.  It  would  be  awkward,  of 
course,  to  regard  these  things  as  separate,  independent  ends 
of  punishment;  the  purpose  of  punishment  is  one:  to  pre- 
serve peace  and  security,  the  condition  of  human  life.  The 
reform  of  the  convict  by  education  is  not  included  in  the 
purpose  of  punishment  as  such.  It  can  easily  be  combined 
with  the  execution  of  a  certain  kind  of  punishment,  namely, 
with  incarceration;  it  is  not,  however,  one  of  the  real 
effects  of  punishment,  but  one  of  the  effects  of  benevolence 
connected  with  it.  The  care  of  discharged  criminals  be- 
longs in  the  same  category. 

Capital  punishment  is  a  subject  of  especial  controversy. 
Some  thinkers,  following  Beccaria's  ^  example,  have  denied 
to  the  state  the  right  to  deprive  any  one  of  the  right  to  life, 
because  it  cannot  be  assumed  that  any  one  would  have  con- 
sented, upon  making  the  state  contract,  to  be  deprived  of  that 
right.  And  Schleiermacher  holds  that  society  should  not 
inflict  upon  the  individual  any  punishment  that  he  would  not 
inflict  upon  himself.2  Kant  rejects  Beccaria's  argument  as 
sophistry  and  as  a  perversion  of  justice ;  he  says  it  springs 
from  the  sympathetic  sentimentalism   of  an    affected  hu- 

1  [De  delitti  e  delle  pene,  1764.  —  Tr.] 

*  [Ckristliche  SiUenlehre,  p.  248.    Victor  Hugo  is  a  violent  opponent  of  capital 
punishment.     See  his  Le  dernier  jour  d'un  condamne'.  —  Tr.] 


612 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


613 


ir*^ 


Wffi] 


manism.^    Indeed,  we  might  ask  with  Justus  Moeser  whether 
the  state  has  any  right  to  permit  the  professional  murderer 
to  live,  first,  in  view  of  the  relatives  of  the  victim,  whom  the 
state  has  deprived  of  the  possibility  of  revenge;  secondly,  in 
view  of  those  who  are  compelled  to  provide  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  prisoner;  thirdly,  in  view  of  the  future  pos- 
sible victims  of  his  criminal  impulse.     Let  us  suppose  that 
a  man  makes  a  regular  business  of  abducting,  robbing,  and 
murdering  servant  girls  in  search  of  employment:  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  people's  sense  of  justice  will  be  sat- 
isfied with  nothing  less  than  the  death  of  such  a  monster ; 
they  would  simply  regard  it  as  an  absurd  outrage  to  keep 
and  to  support  him  for  life  at  public  expense.     I  confess, 
the  fact  that  the  Liberal  party  regards  the  abolition  of  capital 
punishment  as  one  of  its  chief  political  aims,  has  always 
seemed  to  me  to  prove  how  little  it  understands  the  real 
sentiments  of  our  people.     And  I  further  confess  that  I  do 
not  deem  it  impossible  that  the  future  will  again  make  a 
more  extended  use  of  the  process  of  extermination.     That 
modern  nations,  which  have  for  so  many  centuries  relent- 
lessly exterminated  worthless   individuals,  have  for  a  few 
generations  succeeded  in  discarding  these  methods  does  not 
at  all   prove  that  such   a  thing  is  permanently  possible. 
There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  fear  of  crime,  which 
was  formerly  kept  alive  in  the  popular  consciousness  by  so 
many  death-sentences,  is  not  so  great  to-day  as  it  was  one 

hundred  years  ago. 

I  also  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  compulsion  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  criminal  law.  We  find  it  in  civil  law  as  well ; 
especially  where  the  state  compels  the  discharge  of  obliga- 
tions based  upon  contract.  Here,  too,  the  reason  for  coer- 
cion is  apparently  a  teleological  one.  Two  persons  make  a 
contract  calling  for  a  particular  service  or  a  specific  payment. 
The  obligation  is  not  met.     Why  docs  the  law  compel  the 

1  [Rechtsletire,  Hartenstein's  edition,  149  ff.] 


individual  to  keep  his  contract  ?  Why  docs  it  not  say :  That 
is  a  bargain  which  does  not  concern  me ;  why  were  you  so 
reckless  as  to  trust  that  man  or  to  lend  him  money  ? Evi- 
dently, because  it  is  not  immaterial  to  the  state ;  because  it 
has  a  very  essential  interest,  not  in  this  particular  case  as 
such,  it  is  true,  but  in  the  keeping  of  contracts  in  general 
Without  a  guarantee  that  contracts  will  be  kept,  there  coulc? 
be  no  intercourse  except  in  the  form  of  exchange  or  cash 
barter,  and  no  personal  service  except  in  the  form  of  slavery. 
If,  then,  higher  civilization  is  made  possible  only  by  a  de- 
veloped system  of  intercourse,  the  perfection  of  legal  forms 
and  legal  protection  becomes  a  teleological  necessity  for 
intercourse. 

5.  From  this  standpoint  we  can  also  understand  the  duty 
of  the  individual  to  co-operate  in  supporting  the  positive 
right  and  in  battling  against  injustice.  He  is  in  duty  bound 
to  resist  breaches  of  the  law,  even  when  they  do  not  directly 
affect  him.  This  duty  is  recognized  by  the  state :  I  am  com- 
pelled to  resist  attacks  upon  the  right  by  serving  as  a  wit- 
ness, juror,  soldier,  or  official.  But  the  individual  is  also 
morally  bound  to  protect  against  injustice  the  injured  right 
in  general,  even  when  it  is  not  protected  by  the  law.  It  is 
the  virtue  of  the  chivalrous  man  to  defeat  by  personal  inter- 
vention, or  to  call  to  account  before  the  courts,  every  possible 
form  of  injustice  that  interferes  with  the  right,  especially 
the  rights  of  the  defenceless,  either  by  violence,  strategy, 
or  temptation.  We  must,  of  course,  exercise  due  care  in 
this  regard :  for  injustice  and  self-caused  misery  are  fond  of 
giving  themselves  the  air  of  injured  innocence. 

The  absence  of  this  virtue  forms  one  of  the  most  painful 
omissions  in  the  morality  of  the  New  Testament.  To  work 
and  suffer  for  others  it  recognizes  as  a  virtue,  but  of  the 
battle  against  injustice  and  violence  for  the  protection  of 
others  it  says  almost  nothing.  What  ought  the  Samaritan 
to  have  done  had  he  reached  the  spot  a  quarter  of  an  hour 


V 


w 


614  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

earlier  and  had  found  the  rohbers  still  at  work,  and  had 
he  seen  only  one  way  of  rescuing  their  victim,  that  is,  by 
attacking  and  killing  them  ?    I  confess,  I  do  not  know  how 
to  answer  this  question  in  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.     Moses, 
who  strangled  the  Egyptian,  gave  us  an  unambiguous  answer 
by  his  example;  does  the  New  Testament  give  us  the  same 
answer?    It  does  not  seem  so:  Peter's  experience  with  the 
servant  Malchus  seems  to  point  to  a  difPerent  solution;  the 
moral  to  be  drawn  from  it  is  evidently  this,  Resist  ye  not 
evil    neither  that  which  is   done  to  yourselves,   nor  that 
which  is  done  to  others.     So,  too,  the  old  Christian  com- 
munities present  us  with  many  examples  of  heroic  suffer- 
ing,  but  not  with  examples  of  chivalrous  battles  against  the 
oppressors  and  persecutors  of  innocence.     Such  a  type  of 
conduct  was  first  developed  by  mediaeval  Christianity. 

No  one  in  our  times  will  doubt  that  it  is  a  duty  to  resist 
and  battle  against  the  injustice  done  to  others.     But  how 
about  the  wrong  inflicted  upon  myself  f    Is  it  a  duty  to  offer 
resistance  to  this  also,  and  even  to  oppose  it  with  force,  should 
occasion  demand  ?     Or  is  the  defence  of  one's  own  rights 
merely  a  matter  of  inclination,  and  not  a  commandment  of 
justice  ?    The  ethics  of  the  Gospel  favors  the  latter  view ;  it 
nowhere  insists  that  we  assert  our  own  rights,  while  it  often 
admonishes  us  not  to  judge,  not  to  go  to  law,  not  to  take  re- 
venge,  but  to  forgive  transgressions  and  to  love  our  enemies. 
'      There  has  perhaps  never  been  a  time  when  a  community 
calling  itself  Christian  strictly  obeyed  such  a  command.     It 
is  to  be  assumed  that  Christians  have  always  —  at  least  in 
extreme  cases  -though  perhaps  with  some  misgivings,  ap- 
pealed to  the  law  for  protection  and  for  the  punishment  of 
evil.     We  know  that  Paul  appealed  to  his  Roman  citizenship 
for  protection  against  violence  and  injustice.      Now,  espe- 
cially,  that  Christian  states  have  been  established,  the  evan- 
gelical injunction,  "Love  and  forgive  your  enemy,"  does  not 
hinder  any  one  from  going  to  law  and  causing  punishment 


JUSTICE 


615 


to  be  inflicted  by  due  legal  process.  Is  this  merely  a  human 
weakness,  which  cannot  resist  one  of  the  strongest  impulses, 
the  love  of  revenge,  or  does  the  command  not  hold,  at  least 
not  without  limitation  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  latter  is  the  case. 
If  the  public  measures  which  are  taken  to  hinder  injustice 
are  necessary  for  the  establishment  of  order  and  security, 
and  hence  make  for  welfare,  then  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the 
individual  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  support  them  and  to 
carry  them  out.  Whoever  permits  his  rights  to  be  inter- 
fered with  without  making  legal  resistance,  to  that  extent 
weakens  the  barriers  erected  against  injustice.  Every  act  of 
injustice  is  directed  not  only  against  me,  but  against  the 
entire  legal  system,  and,  if  allowed  to  go  unpunished,  dimin- 
ishes the  latter's  power  of  resistance.  Good-natured  or 
cowardly  compliance  invites  repetition  and  imitation;  it 
also  tempts  those  to  do  wrong  who  would  otherwise  be  de- 
terred by  fear ;  and  thereby  endangers  the  rights  of  others. 
A  legal  community  resembles  a  dike-union.  Duty  towards 
the  community  demands  that  even  the  smallest  break  in  the 
dike  be  taken  notice  of  and  stopped  up.  So,  too,  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  member  to  see  to  it  that  no  breaches  are 
made  in  that  part  of  the  universal  defence  against  the  tur- 
bulent floods  of  injustice  which  is  placed  under  his  charge, 
that  is,  in  his  own  rights. 

R.  von  Jhering  ably  develops  this  view  in  his  thoughtful 
little  treatise:  Der  Kampf  urns  EechO  The  right,  he  says, 
is  acquired  and  kept  alive  by  struggle.  To  flee  in  this  battle 
is  to  abandon  one's  moral  dignity  as  a  legal  subject,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  injure  one's  fellow  soldiers  by  making 
a  breach  in  the  ranks  for  the  enemy  to  enter.  The  strength 
of  the  public  legal  system  depends  upon  each  individual's 
willingness  to  insist  upon  his  rights  as  representing  the 
universal  right,  and  upon  the  universal  right  as  represent- 

1  [The  Struggle  for  the  Right. 1 


616 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


m 


ing  his  own  rights,  and,  if  need  be,  to  fight  for  them.     An 
English  traveller,  says  Jhering,  remains  in  a  town  for  days 
and  days  to  resist  the  exorbitant  demands  of  a  hotel-keeper 
or  coachman,  and  spends  ten  times  the  sum  involved  in  the 
dispute,  in  order,  so  it  appears,  to  defend  the  rights  of  old 
England.     "  The  people  laugh  at  him,  and  do  not  know  what 
it  all  means  —  it  would  be  better  for  them  if  they  understood 
him.     For  in  the  few  guldens  for  which  the  man  is  here 
fighting,  there  is,  indeed,  a  piece  of  old  England ;  at  home 
in  his  own  country  everybody  understands  him,  and  hence 
takes  good  care  not  to  overcharge  him.    Imagine  an  Austrian 
of  the  same  social  rank  and  wealth  in  a  similar  situation, 
how  would  he  act  ?    If  I  may  trust  my  own  experiences,  not 
ten  out  of  one  hundred  would  follow  the  example   of  the 
Englishman.     They  would  dread  the  inconvenience  arising 
from  the  trouble,  the  notoriety,  the  danger  of  being  misun- 
derstood, which  an  Englishman  in  England  need  not  fear 
and  which  he  calmly  accepts  abroad,  —  in  short,  they  would 
pay.     But  there  is  more  in  the  gulden  which  the  Englishman 
refuses  to  pay,  and  which  the  Austrian  pays,  than  we  are 
apt  to  believe;  there  is  a  piece  of  England  in  it,  and  a 
piece  of  Austria,  and  it  represents   centuries   of  their  re- 
spective political  evolution  and  social  life."  ^ 

Very  true;  the  energy  with  which  each  individual  in  a 
nation  resists  wrong,  and  the  amount  of  wrong  committed, 
stand  exactly  in  inverse  proportion  to  each  other.  In  free 
nations  this  active  side  of  justice,  the  sense  of  right,  de- 
velops. In  nations  that  are  not  free,  the  individual  expects 
leniency,  privileges,  favors,  mercy;  here  mendicancy,  the 
tipping-system,  bribery,  and  corruption  thrive. 

6.  The  jurist  properly  emphasizes  the  duty  to  respect  and 
protect  others'  as  well  as  our  own  rights  by  lawful  means, 
and  even  by  violent  means  if  necessary.  The  moralist,  on 
the  other  hand,  will  insist,  with  equal  propriety,  that  this 

1  §44. 


u. 


JUSTICE 


617 


duty  is  not  absolute,  that  the  duty  to  respect  and  protect  the 
right  must  be  limited  and  supplemented  by  the  demands 
of  equity  and  magnanimity. 

Equity  demands  that  we  voluntarily  resign  claims  and  acts 
to  which  we  have  an  undoubted  formal  right,  so  that  our  own 
interests  may  not  be  advanced  at  relatively  greater  damage  to 
those  of  others.  This  is  a  demand,  not  of  the  law,  but  of 
morality,  which,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  is  rooted  in  the 
very  nature  of  justice:  my  regard  for  others  and  their  inter- 
ests, which  are  just  as  important  as  my  own,  will  hinder 
me  from  exacting  from  others  all  that  the  law  allows.  To 
insist  rigorously  on  one's  rights  would  be  violating  the  very 
spirit  of  justice,  for  justice  really  demands  that  the  different 
interests  be  fairly  apportioned,  but  it  cannot,  on  account  of 
its  mechanical  nature,  wholly  adapt  itself  to  the  individual 
cases,  and  hence  can  realize  its  end  only  imperfectly.  It 
appeals  to  the  fair-mindedness  of  the  interested  parties  for 
help,  and  now  and  then  expressly  authorizes  the  judge  to 
make  revisions  in  the  interests  of  equity. 

Magnanimity  is  the  virtue  which  does  not  requite  personal 
injuries,  but  overlooks  them,  and  does  not  embrace  the 
opportunity  for  revenge,  even  though  it  present  itself. 
Christianity  goes  so  far  as  to  demand  love  of  enemies :  Love 
him  who  sins  against  you,  as  a  brother,  and  not  only  bear 
him  no  grudge,  but  forgive  him  with  all  your  heart,  and 
return  good  for  evil. 

The  command  of  the  Gospel  seems  difliicult  and  almost 
unnatural.  The  natural  man  deems  it  right  and  proper  to 
love  his  friends  and  to  hate  his  enemies.  Would  it  not  be 
unjust  to  the  former  if  we  should  treat  the  latter  in  the  same 
way  ?  What  would  there  be  left  for  my  friends  if  I  were  to 
treat  my  enemies  with  pure  benevolence  and  beneficence  ? 
And  shall  I  endure  every  injury,  every  attack  against  myself 
and  my  interests  without  exception,  and  do  nothing  but  good 
in  return  ?     Would  that  not  be  encouraging  and  provoking 


r. 


I 


P 


I*' 


W 


w. 


618  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

wickedness  ?     Has  not  nature  herself  taught  all  living  crea- 
tures to  resist  attacks  so  that  they  may  defend  themselves 
and  have  peace  ?     Certainly,  we  must  admit  it ;  and  resist- 
ance  and  resentment,  both  private  and  public,  are  justifiable 
in  their  proper  place.     But  they  are  not  in  every  case  the 
proper  means  of  establishing  and  ensuring  peace,  and  hence 
the  command.  Resist  every  infraction  of  the  law  by  all  law- 
ful means,  cannot  have  absolute  validity.     A  neighbor  in- 
sults me  with  a  frivolous   remark,  or  treats  me  unkindly. 
Shall  I  summon  him  before  court  ?    Shall  I  obtain  satisfac- 
tion by  private  means  ?    The  opportunity  will  surely  pre- 
sent  itself,  owing  to  the  closeness  of  our  relations.     What 
would  be  the  effect  ?     Would  he  be  more  careful  in  future  ? 
Perhaps.     But    another    effect    would    surely  follow:    my 
retaliation  would  leave  a  sting  in  him ;  he  would  consider 
himself  the  affronted  party :  For  such  a  trifle,  on  account  of 
a  mere  word  1  he  would  say.     He  would  make  up  his  mind 
to  pay  me  back  at  the  next  opportunity,  and  to  show  me  at 
the  same  time  that  he  was  not  afraid  of  me.     The  moment 
arrives  when  he  can  play  me  a  trick  or  do  me  a  favor,  protect 
me  against  damage.     He  makes  use  of  his  chance  by  scorn- 
fully reminding  me  of  my  former  conduct.     And  now  it  is 
my  turn  again.    I  simply  defended  my  good  rights  before ;  his 
present  treatment  of  me  is  an  intentional  injury :  this  I  shall 
not  forget.      And  so  we  move  our  revenge  back  and  forth, 
intensifying  it  as  we  go,  making  our  enmity  deeper  each 
time.     Here  the  "struggle  for  the   right"  did   not  bring 
peace,   as  it  should  have  done,  but  the  bitterest,  most  per- 
nicious war,  sapping  the  strength  of  both  of  us.     How  differ- 
ent  it  would  have  been,  had  the  first  act  of  revenge  been 
omitted,  had  the  first  act  of  injustice  been  met  with  com- 
plete,   free   forgiveness!      Perhaps   the    insulting    remark, 
which  inaugurated  the  war  of  revenge,  might  have  formed 
the  starting-point  of  a  lasting  friendship.     An  opportunity 
was  afforded  for  requiting  the  wrong;  I  did  not  embrace  it, 


JUSTICE 


619 


but  was  sincere  and  kind,  polite  and  obliging.  He  was  sur- 
prised and  perplexed;  he  felt  as  though  I  were  heaping 
coals  of  fire  upon  his  head,  and  resolved  to  wipe  out  the 
remembrance  of  that  first  occurrence.  The  first  act  of  injury 
and  forgiveness  became  the  basis  for  a  firm  friendship  be- 
tween us;  my  forgiveness  and  his  acceptance  of  the  same 
are  guarantees  of  our  mutual  good  will.  Thus,  to  speak 
with  the  Apostle,  evil  has  been  overcome  with  good.  There  is 
no  grander  and  more  beautiful  art  than  this;  Jesus  does 
not  forget  it  in  the  beatitudes :  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers. 

Spinoza  furnishes  us  with  the  psychological  formula  for 
it :  "  Hatred  is  increased  by  hatred,  and  can,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  destroyed  by  love.  Hatred  which  is  completely 
vanquished  by  love  passes  into  love;  and  love  is  then 
greater  than  if  hatred  had  not  preceded  it. "  ^  Hence  "  the 
wise  man  (qui  ex  ductu  rationis  vivit)  endeavors,  so  far  as 
he  can,  to  render  back  love  or  kindness  for  other  men's 
hatred,  anger,  and  contempt."  And  with  a  warmth  not 
usual  to  him  the  mathematical  judge  of  human  affairs  adds : 
"  He  who  chooses  to  avenge  wrongs  with  hatred  is  assuredly 
wretched.  But  he  who  strives  to  conquer  hatred  with  love, 
fights  his  battle  in  joy  and  confidence;  he  withstands  many 
as  easily  as  one,  and  has  very  little  need  of  fortune's  aid. 
Those  whom  he  vanquishes  yield  joyfully,  not  through  fail- 
ure, but  through  increase  of  their  powers. "  ^ 

If,  then,  both  modes  of  conduct  are  justifiable,  the  ques- 
tion arises:  How  are  we  to  limit  the  command  of  forgiveness 
and  the  command  of  retaliation?  When  is  the  former,  when 
the  latter,  in  place  ?  It  will  not  be  hard  to  give  a  general 
answer :  That  form  of  conduct  is  always  appropriate  and  duti- 
ful which  in  each  case  tends  to  realize  the  ultimate  end,  the 
avoidance  of  further  injustice  and  lasting  peace.  If  to  forget 
and  to  forgive  were  the  means  of  hindering  theft  and  of 
preserving  the  institution  of  property,  we  should  undoubt- 


1  Ethics,  III.,  43,  44. 


2  Ethics,  IV.,  46. 


'M 


620 


DOCTRINE  OF   VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


621 


ft' 


r^'-. 


it. 


s 


edly  make  exclusive  use  of  this  means.  If  retaliation  and 
punishment  were  the  sole  and  surest  means  of  making  him 
peaceful  and  kind  who  treats  us  impolitely,  unkindly,  and 
uncivilly,  we  should  also  know  what  to  do.  The  trouble  is, 
different  cases  require  different  treatment,  and  it  will  often 
be  impossible  to  determine  with  certainty  what  is  the  most 
effective,  and,  hence,  most  appropriate,  method  of  procedure 
in  a  particular  instance.  It  certainly  cannot  be  indicated  by 
moral  philosophy  in  universal  propositions  or  categorical 
imperatives.  Only  experienced  moral  tact,  which  takes  into 
account  all  the  concrete  circumstances,  can  discover  the 
proper  course  to  pursue  in  each  particular  case,  which,  how- 
ever, does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  error.  Moral  phi- 
losophy can  perhaps  merely  indicate  the  general  points  of 
view  from  which  each  case  must  be  considered.  We  may 
mention  the  following:  — 

(1)  Forgiveness  is  possible  when  the  offence  is  directed 
against  a  particular  person ;  punishment  is  necessary  when 
the  offence  is  directed  not  so  much  against  a  particular  per- 
son as  against  custom  and  law  in  general.  Theft,  for  ex- 
ample, is  not  a  crime  against  the  particular  person  as  such, 
but  against  the  owner  as  such,  hence,  against  the  institution 
of  property.  To  overlook  it  is  therefore  less  possible  than  to 
overlook  an  insult  which  is  aimed  solely  at  myself,  and  does 
not  show  a  general  tendency  to  such  offences.  The  case  is 
different  when  it  comes  to  insulting  an  official  in  the  exercise 
of  his  duties, — for  which  reason  retaliation  is  more  in  place 
Tiere.  The  criminal  law  takes  account  of  these  facts  in  so  far 
as  it  distinguishes  between  delicts  which  are  prosecuted  ex 
officio  and  such  as  are  prosecuted  solely  upon  complaint. 

(2)  It  is  a  fact  that  we  are  apt  to  be  reconciled  and  in- 
clined to  forgiveness  by  remorse.  And  justly  so.  Remorse  is 
a  sign  that  the  offence  was  not  the  expression  of  the  offender's 
permanent  will,  that  it  was  the  result  of  error,  accident, 
haste,  or  carelessness.    If  no  attention  is  paid  to  his  re- 


morse, if  we  react  by  punishing  him  or  taking  revenge,  a 
revulsion  of  feeling  is  likely  to  ensue.  His  remorse  vanishes, 
he  has  expiated  his  wrong,  nay,  he  is  apt  to  feel  that  he  has 
more  than  expiated  it,  and  he  now  has,  instead  of  a  debt  to 
pay,  a  claim  which  he  will  take  up  as  soon  as  opportunity 
offers.  Punishment  may,  of  course,  be  appropriate  even  in 
cases  of  genuine  remorse,  as,  for  example,  in  education;  the 
punishment  may  prove  the  remorse,  and  genuine  remorse  may 
even  demand  punishment  as  an  expiation,  in  order,  however, 
at  the  same  time  to  obtain  forgiveness  thereby.  And  if  the 
remorse  is  not  deep,  punishment  may  be  necessary  to 
strengthen  the  memory  of  the  will:  punishment  is  then  a 
reminder,  an  admonition.  —  When,  however,  remorse  is  lack- 
ing, when  a  conscious  and  stubborn  will,  when  impudent 
malice,  commits  the  wrong  and  boasts  of  it  and  rejoices 
in  its  iniquity,  punishment  is  necessary  to  terrify  and  to 
break  the  wicked  will;  perhaps  the  nature  of  the  will 
may  even  be  transformed  in  this  way,  for  it  is  an  undoubted 
fact  that  there  have  been  genuine  conversions  among  crim- 
inals sentenced  to  death.  —  The  criminal  authorities  too, 
endeavor  to  take  these  things  into  account,  but  they  cannot, 
in  the  very  nature  of  things,  easily  adjust  themselves  to  the 
particular  circumstances,  and  to  this  is  due  the  inadequacy  of 
public  punishment  as  compared  with  that  employed  in  educa- 
tion. It  necessarily  somewhat  resembles  the  mechanical 
process  of  nature,  which  does  not  consider  the  intention,  but 
merely  the  objective  facts.  Then,  again,  the  judge,  as  a  rule, 
has  no  means  of  testing  the  genuineness  of  remorse.  If  this 
factor  were  taken  into  consideration,  the  criminals  would,  of 
course,  all  simulate  remorse,  as  universally  happens  in  pen- 
itentiaries and  other  places  where  a  remorseful  demeanor  is 
regarded  as  a  sign  of  good  behavior.  Nevertheless,  the  judge 
is  induced  by  a  remorseful  confession  to  assume  extenuating 
circumstances. 

(3)  The  third  item  is  the  following :  Wherever  persons  live 


622 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


623 


together  in  permanent  relations^  as  husband  and  wife,  brother 
and  sister,  inmates  of  the  same  house,  relatives,  neighbors, 
etc.,  the  command  of  Jesus,  not  to  forgive  your  brother 
seven  times,  but  seventy  times  seven,  will  be  especially  in 
place.  Slight  collisions  are  always  inevitable  where  persons 
live  close  together.  Whoever  insists  upon  his  rights  in  every 
instance,  makes  life  intolerable  for  himself  and  his  surround- 
ings. A  certain  measure  of  toleration  is  an  absolute  precon- 
dition of  peaceful  intercourse.  "  Be  not  righteous  overmuch," 
the  word  of  the  Preacher,  applies  here ;  that  is,  be  careful 
to  give  everyone  his  just  dues,  but  do  not  always  rigorously 
insist  upon  your  own  rights.  And  also  remember  the  ninth 
commandment  and  the  interpretation  put  upon  it :  Speak  well 
of  thy  neighbor  and  turn  all  things  to  good !  To  good !  This 
is  excellent  advice.  Your  brother  is  close  and  rather  fond  of 
money,  —  say  he  is  economical  and  a  good  manager ;  he  has 
a  tendency  to  express  his  views  somewhat  strongly  and  with- 
out regard  for  the  feelings  of  others,  —  say  he  is  sincere  and 
loves  the  truth ;  he  is  fonder  of  enjoyment  and  social  pleasures 
than  you  deem  necessary,  —  say  he  is  cheerful  and  light- 
hearted.  The  man  who  cannot  see  the  good  in  things,  who 
always  looks  at  them  from  the  worst  side,  who  is  constantly 
finding  fault,  cannot  live  with  men,  and  will  do  well  to  avoid 
contact  with  them  as  much  as  possible.  Schopenhauer  un- 
questionably acted  wisely  when  he  withdrew  from  the  world 
and  absolutely  refused  to  enter  into  close  personal  relations 
with  his  fellows,  such  as,  marriage,  friendship,  society.  In 
his  exclusiveness  he  enjoyed  a  tolerable  peace,  which  other- 
wise would  have  been  impossible.  Dogmatic,  distrustful,  and 
revengeful  as  he  was,  he  would  have  embittered  his  own  life 
and  that  of  others  had  he  mingled  with  the  world. 

Where,  however,  no  permanent  relations  exist,  where  men 
come  in  contact  with  each  other  occasionally  only,  as  is  the 
case  in  business,  it  will  be  much  less  objectionable  for  one  to 
insist  upon  his  rights.     To  overlook  acts  of  injustice  and  to 


let  them  go  unpunished  would  be  apt  to  be  misunderstood. 
It  might  he  regarded  as  a  sign  of  ignorance  or  indolence,  fear 
or  cowardice,  and  would  invite  repetition,  perhaps  on  a  larger 
scale.  It  is  well  known  that  persons  who  are  ashamed  of 
insisting  on  their  rights,  especially  in  little  things,  encourage 
that  tendency  to  fraud  which  is  found  wherever  great  lords 
and  rich  people  are  in  the  habit  of  squandering  their  money. 
The  same  may  happen  in  social  intercourse.  It  is  at  times 
as  meritorious  sharply  to  call  to  account  inquisitive  impu- 
dence, insolent  arrogance  which  boasts  of  despising  morals,  as 
it  is  to  bring  thieves  and  scoundrels  to  justice. 

But  we  cannot  regard  it  as  a  universally  binding  duty  to 
bring  such  offences  to  justice  in  every  case.     It  is  evidently 
not  only   right  but  even  necessary  for  one  to  consider  his 
own  interests  in  such  instances.     The  behavior  of  the  English- 
man mentioned  above  may  be  the  result  of  a  praiseworthy 
habit,  but  this  does  not  make  it  rational  and  dutiful  in  each 
particular  case.     A  man  goes  to  Russia ;  he  is  cheated  by  a 
high  or  a  low  official.    Is  it  his  duty  to  prosecute  the  offender, 
at  the  risk  of  being  compelled  to  carry  on  a  hopeless  and 
expensive  law-suit,  and  of  finally  being  sent  to  Siberia  with- 
out any  trial  whatever  ?    It  seems  to  me  he  might  well  con- 
tend that  it  was  not  his  business  to  improve  the  morals  of 
the  Russian  officials,  at  least  not  at  such  a  cost.     The  case 
may  be  different  for  a  Russian.     And  so  it  can  not  be  my 
auty  to  avenge  every  insult  to  which  I  am  subjected.   A  street 
Arab  makes  faces  at  me,  or  throws  mud  at  me  ;  surely  I  may 
pass  along  without  turning  around,  and  say  with  Epictetus, 
That  is  none  of  my  business.     A  reviewer  says  all  sorts  of 
evil  things  against  me,  all  of  them  being  lies ;  it  is  surely 
my  privilege  to  decide  whether  I  shall  call  him  to  account  or 
shall  console  myself  with  Solomon's  wise  saying:  Noli  re- 
spondere   imprudenti   ad   imprudentiam   ejus,   ne   similis  illi 
fias.     For,  indeed,  the  only  possible  answer  which  one  can 
give  is  often  simply  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  matter.    At 


624 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


625 


I 


Hi 


times,  of  course,  it  may  be  highly  meritorious  to  inflict  ex- 
emplary punishment  upon  a  literary  highwayman,  that  is,  in 
so  far  as  this  will  tend  to  protect  other  wayfarers,  and  help 
to  develop  a  public  conscience  along  these  lines. 

7.    The  Principle  of  Eights.     Right  in  the  subjective  sense 
was  characterized  above  as  that  sphere  of  interests  which 
a  person  can  justly  command  others  to  respect ;  wrong,  as 
an  offensive  encroachment  upon  this  field.    The  question  now 
arises :  According  to  what  principle  is  the  line  to  be  drawn 
which  separates  the  spheres  of  the  different  members  of  a 
legal  community  from  each   other  ?    If  the  actions  of  in- 
dividuals were  perfectly  independent   and  did   not  conflict 
with  each  other,  if  their  interests  were  absolutely  isolated 
from  each  other,  it  would  be  the  function  of  the  right  simply 
to  protect  this  relation   against   arbitrariness  and  violence. 
But  the  case  is  different.     The  actions  of  each  individual 
cross  those  of  others,  their  spheres  of  interests  intersect.    We 
might  say,  with  Hobbes :    Originally,  in  a  fictitious  natural 
state,  every  man  had  and  insisted  on  his  right  to  have  every- 
thing and  to  do  anything  he  liked.     Hence  arose  a  collision 
of  interests  and  actions,  which  led  to  "  the  condition  of  war 
of  every  one  against  every  one."    The  system  of  rights  pre- 
vents such  a  state ;  it  limits  the  activity  or  the  liberty  of  each 
individual  to  a  particular  sphere,  and  at  the  same  time  de- 
fends him  in  this  against  the  encroachments  of  others.     Or, 
with  Hobbes :  The  legal  order  consists  in  each  individual's 
resigning  his  right  to  everything  (jus  in  omnia),  and  receiv- 
ing in  return  a  limited  and  protected  sphere.    According  to 
what  principle  shall  the  lines  be  drawn  between  the  conflict- 
ing rights  and  interests  ? 

The  principle  of  equality  seems  to  suggest  itself  as  the  most 
immediate  and  natural  principle :  Each  man  shall  count  for 
one ;  the  interests  of  each  man  are  as  important  as  those  of 
every  other  one.  This  is  the  principle  with  which  the  advo- 
cates of  natural  rights  antagonized  the  positive  and  historical 


system  of  law  prevailing  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  Starting  from  the  hypothesis  of  the  natural  equality 
of  individuals,  they  demanded  equal  rights  for  all.  The  con- 
clusion would  be  correct  if  the  premises  were  true.  Equality 
of  natural  capacities  and  powers  demands  equality  of  rights 
in  perfecting  and  exercising  them,  as  well  as  equal  rights  to 
the  means  of  their  realization. 

Positive  law  has,  however,  never  acknowledged  this  prin- 
ciple of  the  absolute  equality  of  all  individuals ;  and  even  the 
upholders  of  natural  rights  have  always  accepted  certain 
restrictions  as  self-evident.  There  never  has  been  equality  of 
rights  between  adults  and  children,  and  it  has  never  been  de- 
manded. Children,  it  is  true,  are  recognized  as  having  rights, 
e.  ^.,  property-rights,  but  they  are  hindered  from  exercising 
them,  and  so,  too,  their  personal  freedom  is  subjected  to  the 
most  decided  limitations.  The  positive  law  universally  shows 
the  same  differences  between  the  rights  of  the  sexes :  women 
are  restricted  in  the  exercise  of  certain  rights,  at  least  married 
women,  while  they  are  almost  entirely  devoid  of  other  rights, 
like  public  rights.  It  is  true,  some  of  the  most  modern 
advocates  of  natural  rights  demand  the  abolition  of  the  legal 
inequalities  between  the  sexes:  equal  rights  in  public  and 
private  law  are  claimed  for  women.  And  we  may  undoubt- 
edly say  that  our  previous  development  has  been  tending 
towards  equalization.  Yet  the  majority  of  persons  to-day, 
women  as  well  as  men,  do  not  regard  it  as  probable  or  desir- 
able that  the  rights  of  men  and  women  be  made  absolutely 
equal. —  Why  not  ?  Is  the  vis  ijiertice  of  institutions  the  only 
reason  ?  Hardly.  Nay,  the  inequality  of  rights  corresponds 
to  an  inequality  of  natural  powers  and  natural  spheres  of  action, 
and  so  long  as  this  exists,  the  inequality  of  rights  seems  to  be 
natural  and  necessary.  To  the  military  and  political  functions 
of  the  man  —  and  here  we  are  not  to  think  chiefly  of  speech- 
making  and  voting — correspond  certain  political  rights;  to 

his  economic  position  corresponds  liis  right  to  be  the  exter- 

40 


."■ ;  ■*■■ 


■.H 


1.  f 


626 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


nal  economic  representative  of  the  household.  Woman's  most 
important  function,  on  the  other  hand,  still  is -however 
great  the  changes  of  these  latter  days  may  have  been  —  the 
management  of  the  home,  and  it  will  continue  to  be  so,  as 
long  as  the  life-conditions  of  man  himself  remain  essentially 
what  they  are.  The  rights  of  woman  are  determined  by  this 
relation :  it  is  her  privilege  to  rule  the  home,  a  right  which 
is  vouchsafed  her  not  only  by  custom,  but  by  law. 

Beside  the  legal  differences  based  on  age  and  sex,  the  his- 
torical legal   systems   always  show  other  differences  which 
rest  upon   class  distinctions.     Freemen  and  slaves  or  serfs, 
nobles   and   citizens,  property   holders  and  the   propertyless 
always  had  different  rights.    This  now  was  the  point  against 
which  the   upholders   of  natural   rights  directed  their  real 
attacks,  and  here  they  were  essentially  successful  in  enforc- 
ing their  claim  of  equal  rights.     Ever  since  the  great  revolu- 
tion, on  the  eve  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which  affected  all 
relations  of  right,  there  have  been  no  real  class  rights  in  the 
European  states ;  these  have  entirely  disappeared  from  private 
law,  and  are  being  gradually  eliminated  from  public  law  ;  a 
few  remnants,  e.  g,,  in  the  form  of  a  property  qualification 
for  voters  or  of  privileges  conceded  to  certain  classes  with 
regard  to  certain  offices,  are  all  that  is  left  of  the  old  system. 
— Vhy  has  the  equality  of  rights  prevailed  here?    Surely 
because  the  differences  in  capacity  and  the  corresponding 
differences  of  function  and  duty  have  gradually  disappeared : 
the   classes  themselves   have  been  gradually   dissolved  and 
with  them  the  legal  class-distinctions.     Natural  differences 
still   exist  between  men,  differences  in  mental  and  moral 
endowment  and  education,  differences  in  inclination  and  skill, 
but  they  are  no  longer  incorporated  in  classes,  as  was  largely 
the  case  in  former  times. 

This,  then,  would  be  the  principle  which  seems,  on  the 
whole,  to  have  governed  the  development  of  positive  right : 
the  spheres  of  rights  of  the  different  members  of  the  legal 


JUSTICE 


627 


community  are  staked  off  according  to  the  spheres  of  action 
corresponding  to  their  natures  and  powers.  Equality  of 
rights  extends  as  far  as  there  is  general  natural  equality; 
corresponding  to  the  great  and  essential  differences  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  things,  we  have  differences  in  rights. 

Perhaps  the  upholders  of  the  theory  of  natural  rights  can 
also  adopt  this  principle.  The  most  desirable  thing  would 
be  for  each  individual  to  exercise,  with  absolute  freedom 
and  an  unlimited  control  of  all  the  means,  all  the  functions 
of  life  which  lead  to  and  are  included  in  the  perfection  of 
his  natural  capacities.  This  ideal  of  individual  perfection 
would  at  the  same  time  be  the  ideal  fulfilment  of  duty  towards 
the  community :  the  richer  and  more  varied  the  individual 
life,  the  richer  would  be  the  collective  life.  But  since  such 
absolute  freedom  and  such  unlimited  rights  are  impossible 
where  many  live  together,  and  since  it  becomes  necessary 
to  limit  the  liberty  of  each  individual  conformably  with  the 
freedom  of  all  the  rest,  such  restrictions  must  be  made  for 
the  general  good  that  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  power 
and  action  may  be  realized  in  the  community.  This  will 
be  the  case  when  the  spheres  of  right  are  marked  out 
according  to  the  powers  and  capacities  of  the  individuals. 
And  such  an  arrangement  could  not,  as  it  seems,  be  opposed 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  individual:  the  apportionment 
would  be  equitable.  Or,  if  we  consider  the  functions  of  the  in- 
dividuals from  the  standpoint  of  the  community,  as  duties,  we 
can  say  that  rights  are  to  be  apportioned  according  to  duties. 

8.  Incongruity  between  Law  and  Morals.^  If  the  fullest  and 
freest  development  and  exercise  of  human  powers  and  cap- 
acities is  the  highest  good  of  human  life,  the  legal  order  may, 
according  to  the  above,  be  defined  as  a  mechanism  in  the 
service  of  the  good,  whose  function  it  is  to  harmonize  many 
individual  forces^  with  the  least  expenditure  of  energy,  or  to 
balance  many  partially  crossing  spheres  of  interest,  with  the 

1  [See  also  Hr.fPding,  XXXVIL  —  Tit.] 


628 


DOCTRINE  OF   VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


629 


: 


^.' 


11     ■ 


ft 
I.  I 

Ltt.. 


least  injury  to  those  interests.  The  more  perfectly  a  posi- 
tive legal  order  accomplishes  this  result,  the  more  closely  it 
realizes  the  purpose  of  the  law,  or  what  ethics  demands  and 

expects  of  the  law. 

But  the  legal  system  can  never  absolutely  realize  this  end. 
It  lies  in  the  nature  of  a  mechanism  to  act  mechanically,  that 
is,  according  to  general  laws,  and  not  according  to  the  re- 
quirements of  a  particular  case.    The  legal  system  acts  in 
the  same  way:  individual  cases  are  decided   according  to 
general  rules.     We  may  conceive  of  a  system  deciding  indi- 
vidual cases  only ;  we  may  conceive  of  a  legal  community 
which,  either  as  a  collective  body,  or  through  some  organs 
or  other,  without  binding  itself  or  its  judicial  organs  in  any 
way,  finds  and  determines  the  right  from  case  to  case,  by 
free  deliberation.     There  is  in  reality  no  such  law ;  every- 
where the  law  has  the  form  of  universal  rules ;  the  right  of 
the  individual  case  is  ascertained  by  subsuming  it  under  one 
of  these  rules.     The  reason  for  this  is  obvious  :  only  when 
there  are  general  rules  or  laws,  can  the  individual  know  and 
do  the  right  with  certainty  and  ease,  and  only  in  this  way, 
too,  can  the  law  be  protected  against  the  arbitrariness  of 
those  administering  it.     If  the  right  were  ascertained  from 
particular  decisions  only,  then  the  individual  who  is  in  doubt 
about  the  limits  of  his  own  rights  and  those  of  others,  would 
have  to  judge  according  to  analogous  cases  —  an  uncertain 
method  — while  the   subjective  notions  and   inclinations  of 
the  judge  would  furnish  boundless  opportunities  for  error  and 
partiality.     The  safety  of  the  law   depends   upon   its  uni- 
formity.    The  legal  order  here  resembles  the  natural  order  •, 
a  nature  without  uniformity,  in  which  all  events  occurred 
without   rule,   say  according  to   absolute    caprice,  would  be 
unknowable,  and  practical  adaptation  to  its  workings  would 
be  impossible.     The  uniformity  of  the  process  of  nature  is 
teleologically  necessary  for  us  as  acting  and  knowing  beings  ; 
and  the  uniformity  of  law  is  necessary  for  the  same  reason. 


But  this  very  uniformity  of  nature  is  fatal  to  our  purposes 
in  particular  instances.  All  our  movements  presuppose 
that  there  are  no  exceptions  to  the  law  of  gravitation,  and 
their  certainty  depends  upon  the  fact  that  our  body  univer- 
sally obeys  it,  like  everything  else.  At  times,  however,  it 
causes  injury  and  death.  Precisely  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  legal  order :  as  a  rule  it  tends  to  preserve  and  produce 
what  is  by  nature  right,  but  cases  occur  in  which,  owing  to 
its  necessary  mechanical  operation,  the  moral  law  is  violated 
and  broken  by  the  positive  law.  The  particular  cases 
exhibit  countless  individual  differences,  while  the  law  it- 
self is  general,  conceptual,  schematic.  The  transition  from 
childhood  to  maturity  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  continuous 
process  of  development,  which  differs  for  different  individ- 
uals. The  law,  however,  determines  in  a  rigid  formula,  that 
a  person  is  not  of  age  until  he  is  twenty-one  years  old.  Even 
if  on  the  day  before  he  reaches  his  majority  the  guardians, 
against  the  will  of  the  ward,  take  the  most  serious  and 
ruinous  measures  affecting  his  rights,  these  will  have  legal 
force  and  will  be  upheld  by  the  courts.  The  law  protects 
contracts  which  were  made  in  legitimate  business,  without 
regard  to  whether  their  provisions  still  conform  to  justice 
or  not.  Owing  to  unforeseen  circumstances,  things  may  so 
have  changed  as  to  cause  the  ruin  of  one  of  the  contracting 
I)arties  should  the  contract  now  be  carried  out,  perhaps  with- 
out substantially  benefiting  the  other  party.  The  law  is  not 
concerned  about  that.  It  pitilessly  orders  the  eviction  of 
a  tenant  who  has  unsuspectingly  signed  a  ruinous  con- 
tract, or  the  eviction  of  a  debtor  who  has  been  robbed  of  his 
patrimony  by  a  usurer  who  has  remained  within  the  pale 
of  the  law.  It  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  everybody 
always  acts  with  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  law  and  with 
a  full  understanding  of  his  interests,  an  indispensable  hypoth- 
esis which,  however,  as  we  all  know,  is  false. 

The   same  is   true   of  criminal  law.     It   embraces  under 


630 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


631 


the  same  formula  two  acts  which  are,  subjectively  or  morally 
considered,  infinitely  different  from  each  other.  Murder  is 
the  intentional  killing  of  a  man  with  malice  aforethought,  and 
is  punishable  with  death.  This  definition  includes  the  open 
and  honest  killing  of  a  dishonorable  and  base  scoundrel  who 
has  ruined  the  honor  and  happiness  of  my  family  through 
some  dastardly  act,  without  having  rendered  himself  amenable 
to  the  criminal  law,  as  well  as  the  most  heinous  deed  of  the 
poisoner  and  assassin.  It  is  true,  the  criminal  law  attempts 
to  make  itself  more  elastic  where  the  discrepancy  is  greatest, 
in  order  to  adapt  itself  to  the  individual  case :  the  discre- 
tionary powers  of  the  judge  in  reference  to  the  punishment  to 
be  inflicted,  the  consideration  of  extenuating  circumstances, 
and  the  possibility  of  pardon  are  means  to  this  end.  But  it  is 
clear  that  these  safeguards  are  not  sufficient  to  counteract 
the  errors  caused  by  the  mechanical  operation  of  the  law. 

Hence  it  happens  that  the  positive  law  at  times  demands 
and  does  what  contradicts  the  idea  of  justice  in  a  particular 
case:  summum  jus  summa  injuria, —  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  the  universality  and  uniformity  of  the  law. 
Absolute  adaptation  of  the  law  to  the  particular  instance  is 
possible  only  when  the  law  appears  in  the  form  of  a  personal 
will,  as  is  the  case  in  home  education. 

From  this  it  follows  that  it  may,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, be  morally  possible  for  a  person  to  do  what  the  law 
docs  not  allow.  It  is  legally  wrong  for  a  man  to  dispose  of  a 
thing  entrusted  to  his  care,  to  the  detriment  of  the  owner ; 
such  an  act  is  punishable  as  a  breach  of  faith.  And  yet 
it  may  be  morally  right.  In  case  he  can  avert  a  great 
calamity  from  himself  and  others  only  by  appropriating  the 
thing  entrusted  to  him,  he  may  perhaps  do  so  without  com- 
punction. He  may  be  guilty  and  punishable  before  the  law, 
but  before  the  tribunal  of  conscience  and  morality  he  is  with- 
out blame. 

It  ie  worthy  of  note  that  the  law  itself,  in  a  certain  sense, 


recognizes  the  possibility  of  such  cases,  in  that  it  exempts 
from  punishment  criminal  acts  "  when  the  act  was  committed 
in  consequence  of  a  condition  of  necessity,  for  which  the  agent 
was  not  responsible,  and  which  could  not  have  been  averted  in 
any  other  way,  and  in  order  to  save  the  body  or  life  of  the 
agent  or  one  of  his  family  from  an  imminent  danger."  ^ 
Hence,  when  a  man  on  the  verge  of  starvation  appropriates 
and  consumes  what  belongs  to  another,  or  when  he  is  in 
danger  of  freezing  to  death,  and  burns  his  neighbor's  fence, 
he  is  exempt  from  punishment.  In  practically  defeating 
itself  the  law  evidently  aims  to  avoid  a  conflict  with  morality 
or  the  idea  of  justice.  And  this  is  right,  for  it  would  simply 
destroy  the  faith  in  its  own  justice  and  necessity  if  it  were  to 
treat  such  cases  according  to  the  formula:  Whoever  ap- 
propriates anything  belonging  to  another  in  violation  of  the 
law,  will  be  punished  with  imprisonment  for  theft. 

Berner^  considers  the  definition  of  the  term  condition  of 
necessity  (^Notstand)  in  the  Imperial  Criminal  Code  too  narrow. 
He  is  right.  If  a  man  in  serious  danger  of  losing  his  entire  for- 
tune sliglitly  encroaches  upon  the  rights  of  another,  say  by 
tearing  down  his  neighbor's  fence  or  by  entering  a  dwelling  or 
garden  against  the  will  of  the  owner,  in  order  to  save  his  house 
from  fire  or  flood,  it  is  evidently  not  possible  to  punish  him  for 
destruction  of  property  or  trespass.  Or  let  us  suppose  a  man 
compels  an  unwilling  third  party,  by  threats  or  force,  to  do 
or  leave  undone  a  trifling  act  in  order  to  save  a  total  stranger's 
life.  It  is  not  morally  possible  to  condemn  him  for  interfering 
with  the  personal  liberty  of  another.  Berner  thinks  it  would 
be  wise  not  to  define  the  concept  of  necessity  at  all,  but  to 
leave  the  matter  entirely  to  the  discretion  of  the  judge.  In 
this  respect,  too,  I  agree  with  him.  In  order  to  have  sufficient 
universality  the  definition  could  hardly  read  otherwise  than 
as  follows:  In  case  it  is  possible  to  preserve  my  own  or 

1  Reichsstrafgesetzbuch,  Imperial  Criminal  Code  of  Grermany,  §  54. 

2  Strafrecht,  §  57. 


632 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


JUSTICE 


633 


others'  vital  interests  only  by  doing  less  damage  to  the  rights 
of  others,  a  condition  of  necessity  exists,  which  renders  the 
infringement  of  others'  rights  exempt  from  punishment.  It  is 
obvious  that  no  legislature  could  enact  such  a  law.  Its  indefi- 
niteness  would  make  all  other  laws  uncertain :  for  how  shall 
we  define  a  vital  interest  ?  What  a  field  such  a  definition 
would  open  to  the  artifices  of  the  lawyer !  If  we  leave  the 
matter  to  the  judge,  without  tying  him  to  a  definition  or  con- 
fusing him  with  a  vague  principle,  we  may,  I  believe,  assume 
that  he  will  hit  upon  the  right  with  the  tact  peculiar  to 
a  healthy  common-sense  that  has  been  sharpened  by  judicial 

experience. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  agree  with  Berner  when  he  de- 
fends the  notion  of  an  actual  Notrecht  {right  of  necessity), 
which  the  Imperial  Criminal  Code  avoids.  It  may  be  morally 
justifiable  to  do  what  is  contrary  to  the  juridical  right,  but 
this  cannot,  as  it  seems  to  me,  be  defined  juridically  as  right. 
That  would  mean  a  right  to  violate  the  right.  The  law  can 
grant  exemption  from  punishment  only  under  certain  circum- 
stances. Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  speak  of  a  NotunrecU 
(necessary  unright  or  wrong)  in  analogy  with  the  Notliige  (lie 
of  necessity),  a  wrong  which,  objectively  considered,  is  un- 
doubtedly a  wrong,  but  which  cannot  be  judged  and  treated  as  a 
wrong  under  the  existing  objective  and  subjective  conditions. 

Hence,  the  law  itself  recognizes  in  the  notion  of  necessity 
and  its  influence  upon  the  legal  estimate  of  an  act,  that  it 
may,  owing  to  its  logical-mechanical  character,  actually 
result  in  doing  wrong,  that  is,  decide  contrary  to  the  idea  of 
justice.  The  idea  of  justice  demands  that  equal  interests  be 
treated  as  equal,  unequal  interests  as  unequal.  As  a  rule, 
the  law  takes  no  account  of  the  relative  value  of  conflict- 
ing interests :  it  simply  decides  according  to  general  formal 
rules,  and  is  obliged  to  do  so.  But  under  totally  abnormal 
circumstances  it  goes  back  even  to  the  very  source  of  the 
decision :  wherever  there  is  an  absolute  discrepancy  between 


the  interests  involved,  the  larger  ones  take  precedence  over 
the  smaller  ones,  without  regard  to  the  formal  law.  Inasmuch 
as  such  corrections  are,  and  can  be,  made  only  in  extreme 
cases,  it  follows  that  the  enforcement  of  the  law  must  in 
many  instances  result  in  decisions  which  do  not  satisfy  the 
idea  of  justice. 

9.  This  is  one  incongruity  between  law  and  morality :  it 
may  be  morally  possible  to  do  what  is  legally  impossible. 
More  frequent  and  more  important  is  the  other  case :  it  may 
be  legally  possible  to  do  what  is  morally  impossible ;  a  man 
may  be  guilty  of  the  most  serious  violations  of  the  moral  duty 
of  justice  and  yet  remain  strictly  within  the  limits  of  the  law. 

The  positive  law  defines,  we  may  say,  only  a  part  of  the 
actual  right.  The  mechanical  nature  of  the  legal  order  makes 
such  a  limitation  necessary.  A  legal  system  attempting 
to  enforce  the  complete  realization  of  the  idea  of  justice  in  the 
acts  of  men  would,  as  may  readily  be  seen,  necessarily  lead 
to  a  most  intolerable  state  of  insecurity  and  tyranny.  Hence 
the  legal  order  confines  itself  to  enforcing  that  minimum  of 
riffhteous  acts  without  which  human  social  life  would  not  be 
possible.  It  thereby,  of  course,  leaves  a  wide  margin  for 
injuries  and  the  unjust  assertion  of  individual  interests  at  the 
expense  of  those  of  others.  It  does  not  enforce  the  payment 
of  a  just  wage,  but  simply  of  the  stipulated  one ;  it  does  not 
punish  the  delivery  of  goods  inferior  to  those  which  the  con- 
tract calls  for,  but  only  fraud ;  it  does  not  compel  a  man  to 
give  to  every  one  the  honor  which  is  due  him,  but  merely  pun- 
ishes affronts.  A  general  survey  of  all  the  spheres  of  rights 
Avill  bring  out  this  discrepancy  between  the  demands  of  the 
law  and  the  demands  of  morality. 

The  legal  spheres,  as  we  noticed  before,  correspond  to  the 
great  spheres  of  action  or  the  circles  of  interests,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  which  the  legal  order  exists.  The  first  and  narrow- 
est sphere  of  interests  is  that  which  we  may  embrace  under 
the  heading,  body  and  life.     Encroachments  upon  this  domain 


634 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


are  made  by  homicide,  isfi  urement,  assault  and  battery,  and 
all  attacks  upon  life  and  health.  Protection  against  such 
crimes  forms  an  important  part  of  all  law;  in  the  oldest 
legal  systems  it  occupies  the  most  conspicuous  place.  The 
laws  of  the  ancient  Germanic  races,  for  example,  consist 
largely  in  the  determination  of  the  amount  of  blood-money  to 
be  paid  for  every  kind  of  injury  against  body  and  life.  If  we 
mean  by  encroachments  upon  this  domain  only  physical 
assaults,  then  the  law  seems  to  leave  no  room  for  infractions. 
In  fact,  however,  every  hurt  is  directed  against  body  and  life, 
and  so  boundless  opportunity  is  offered  for  unpunishable 
offences  against  others:  such  as  causing  them  annoyance, 
arousing  their  anger  or  grief,  exploiting  and  defrauding  them. 
This  is  what  the  Gospel  has  to  say  in  the  matter :  "  Whoso- 
ever hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer." 

A  second  sphere  of  interests  is  bounded  by  the  family^  the 
expanded  individual  life.  Encroachments  upon  this  domain 
are  made  by  adultery,  abduction,  substitution  of  children, 
seduction,  and  similar  crimes.  The  more  pronounced  and 
tangible  forms  of  such  offences  are  reached  by  the  criminal 
law;  the  more  subtle  forms  of  disturbing  the  peace  of  the 
home  and  the  family,  tale-bearing,  intriguing,  by  which  hus- 
bands are  estranged  from  their  wives  and  parents  from  their 
children,  do  not  come  within  the  reach  of  the  law ;  think  of 
Othello's  friend,  lago ! 

A  third  sphere  of  interests  is  defined  by  property^  which 
includes  the  sum-total  of  external  means  of  self-preservation 
and  voluntary  action.  Encroachments  upon  this  field  are  made 
by  robbery,  theft,  blackmail,  fraud,  forgery,  embezzlement, 
usury,  and  all  such  offences  as  come  under  the  head  of  crimes 
against  property.  Here  again  the  criminal  law  cannot  reach 
the  more  subtle  methods  by  which  property  is  illegitimately 
acquired  at  others'  expense.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
law  to  punish  the  offenders,  the  inventive  genius  of  the 
lower  and  higher  criminal  classes  always  outwits  the  law. 


JUSTICE 


635 


As  a  fourth  sphere  of  interests  may  be  mentioned  honor^ 
or  ideal  self-preservation.  Encroachments  upon  this  domain 
are  made  by  insults,  false  reports,  slander.  In  these  cases, 
much  more  than  in  the  preceding  ones,  the  criminal  law  can 
reach  only  the  more  flagrant  and  careless,  but  not  the  more 
subtle  and  shrewd  violations,  which  are  not  the  less  injurious. 
There  are  a  thousand  anonymous,  indirect,  undiscoverable 
ways  of  blasting  a  man's  reputation  for  which  a  penal  formula 
never  can  be  found. 

The  fifth  sphere  of  interests  is  the/ree  exercise  of  volition. 
Attacks  upon  the  liberty  of  others  are  made  by  kidnapping, 
illegal  arrest,  compulsion,  threats.  Breaches  of  domestic  peace 
may  also  be  placed  in  this  list.  In  the  primitive  legal  codes 
protection  was  afforded  against  this  class  of  offences  by 
threatening  with  punishment  every  one  who  made  a  slave  of  a 
fellow,  contrary  to  the  law.  Legal  slavery  and  serfdom  no 
longer  exist  among  us.  Yet  even  in  our  day  forms  of  depend- 
ence are  not  wanting  which  closely  resemble  actual  slavery. 
We  may  regard  the  laws  which  have  been  enacted  for  the  pro- 
tection of  labor  during  the  last  half  century  as  a  continuation 
of  the  legislation  in  defense  of  individual  liberty  against  new 
forms  of  slavery.  No  one  enjoys  freedom  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  term  whose  life  and  strength  are  utilized  merely  as  means 
to  others'  ends.  Hence,  whoever  uses  men  in  this  way,  or 
attempts  to  reduce  them  to  such  a  state  or  to  keep  them  in  it, 
acts  contrary  to  the  law  of  justice,  which  demands  that  the 
freedom  of  others  be  respected. 

Finally,  we  may  also  add  a  sixth  sphere  of  interests,  which  is 
closely  connected  with  the  fourth  and  fifth,  the  spiritual  life^ 
which  expresses  itself  in  convictions,  views,  beliefs,  religion, 
morality,  and  habits  of  life.  Persecutions,  aspersions,  open  or 
concealed  signs  of  contempt,  scornful  neglect,  importunate 
attempts  at  conversion,  are  some  of  the  forms  of  interfer- 
ence with  this  field.  The  inner  state  which  tends  to  such 
forms  of  injustice,  we  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  intolerance* 


II 


636 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES  AND   DUTIES 


It  has  its  natural  roots  partly  in  man's  dependence  and  need 
of  society,  the  gregarious  instinct,  partly  in  his  arrogance 
and  the  conceited  belief  in  his  own  infallibility.    The  majority 
of  men  are  sure   of   their  ground   only  when  their  fellows 
are  going  in  the  same  direction,  thinking  the  same  thoughts. 
Hence,  they  demand  that  everybody  accommodate  himself  to 
them.     Deviations  from  the  common   rule   are  regarded  as 
disturbances  and  give  offence,  and  hence  all  means  are  em- 
ployed that  seem  suited  either  to  bring  the  dissenter  into  har- 
mony with  his  fellows  or  to  remove  him  from  view,  and  to 
deter  others  from  imitating  his  example.     Arrogance  has  the 
same  effect  upon  the  leaders  of  the  masses.     They  regard  it 
as  an  intolerable  presumption  on  the  part  of  an  individual  to 
refuse  to  follow  their  leadership,  for  does  he  not  thereby 
tacitly  accuse  the  appointed  authorities  of  error  ?   What  would 
happen  if  everybody  were  to  dare  such  a  thing  ?    An  example 
must  therefore  be  made.    The  opposite  habit  of  mind  is  called 
toleration  ;  liberality/  of  mind  would  perhaps  be  a  more  appro- 
priate term.     A  liberal  education  shows  itself  in  the  ability 
to  understand  and  to  recognize  what  is  strange  and  different. 
It  is  acquired  only  by  frequent  contact  with  the  extraordi- 
nary, be    it    personal,  literary,    or  historical.      In    narrow 
spheres  the  mind  remains  narrow ;  nations,  classes,  scholas- 
tic sects,  religious  communities,  which  live  for  themselves  and 
scarcely  come  in  contact  with  the  customs  and  opinions  of 
others,  are  universally  conspicuous  for  their  intolerance. 

This  is  a  field  in  which  the  law  is  most  powerless.  It  can 
reach  violations  only  when  they  can  be  construed  as  libels, 
which  is  not  always  the  case.  And  yet  such  offences  may 
cause  serious  injury ;  even  mere  intrusive  attempts  at  conver- 
sion ultimately  become  unbearable.  The  law  is  powerless 
against  them.  Nevertheless,  toleration  is  not  a  favor,  but  a 
right :  morally,  every  one  has  the  right  to  demand  that  we  do 
not  interfere  with  his  habits,  his  convictions,  and  his  thoughts 
if  he  is  determined  to  adhere  to  them ;  and  it  is  a  duty  to 


JUSTICE 


637 


respect  this  right,  provided,  of  course,  the  individual's  be- 
havior does  not  violate  the  rights  of  others.  I  have  the  right 
to  win  over  others  to  my  ways  of  thinking  and  acting,  only  by 
example  and  by  means  of  persuasion,  and  in  the  latter  case  I 
must  respect  the  rights  of  others  to  their  own  opinions.  —  The 
difficulty  arises  with  the  question  :  To  what  extent  have  tastes, 
habits,  assertions,  opinions,  of  which  we  cannot  morally 
approve,  a  claim  to  toleration,  that  is,  to  what  extent  shall 
we  concede  to  them  equal  rights  ?  It  is  obvious  that  I  have 
not  the  right  to  censure  or  to  express  my  contempt  for  every 
statement  which  cannot  be  justified  morally,  or  which  does 
violence  to  my  moral  sense  or  taste.  And  it  is  equally  obvious 
that  I  am  not  bound  in  duty  to  allow  everything  to  pass  with- 
out contradiction :  it  may  be  in  the  highest  measure  justifi- 
able to  express  my  contempt  openly.  Here  again  no  formula 
can  be  given  which  will  enable  us  to  decide  each  particular 
case.  We  must  leave  it  to  tact  to  discover  what  is  proper 
under  these  circumstances. 


|i 


I 


CHAPTER  X 

LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR! 

1.  Beside  justice,  the  negative  side  of  benevolence,  we  have 
love  of  neighbor,  the  complementary,  positive  side.  We  may 
define  it  as  that  habit  of  the  will  and  mode  of  conduct 
which  assists  those  in  want,  and  strives  to  promote  the  wel- 
fare of  others  by  active  sympathy.  —  t  is  the  great  command- 
ment of  Christianity.  In  the  last  judgment  man's  worth  will  be 
measured  by  this  standard.  "  Then  shall  the  King  say  unto 
them  on  his  right  hand,—  I  was  an  hungred,  and  ye  gave  me 
meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  drink :  I  was  a  stranger, 
and  ye  took  me  in :  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me :  I  was  sick, 
and  ye  visited  me :  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me." 
Three  times  more  these  works  of  mercy  are  enumerated,  — 
a  sermon  powerful  in  its  grand  simplicity. 

The  commandment  is  so  simple  and  clear  that  no  doubt 
can  arise  as  to  its  meaning.  I  meet  a  hungry  man ;  what  shall 
I  do?  —  Give  him  what  you  have.  —  Very  well.  Ten  and  a 
hundred  others  come;  shall  I  give  to  each  ?  Shall  I  give  until 
I  have  nothing  left  for  myself  ?  And  shall  I  not  await  their 
coming  —  shall  I  seek  them  out  ?  I  hear  that  my  neighbor 
is  sick  and  in  want ;  I  visit  him,  I  help  and  console  him,  as 

1  [Paley,  Bk.  III.,  Part  II.  ;  Sidgwick,  Bk.  III.,  ch.  IV. ;  Spencer,  Inductions, 
chs.  VII.,  VIII;  Ethics  of  Social  Life,  Pts.  V.  VI;  Porter,  Part  II.,  chs.  VII.. 
XI.-XIII. ;  HOffding,  XIL  a,  XXXIV.,  XXXV. ;  Wundt,  Part  III.,  ch.  IL,  3,  4 ; 
ch.  IV.,  3,  4  ;  Dorner,  pp.  395-403,  605-624  ;  Runze,  §  79,  §  60 ;  Statistics. 
Oettingen,  §  36.— See  also  Lecky,  Hisfnrj/  of  European  Morals,  II.,  85-101,  and 
references  under  ch.  VIII.  supra.  —  Tr.] 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


639 


well  as  I  can.  Shall  I  go  farther  ?  Shall  I  hunt  up  the  sick 
and  the  needy  everywhere  ?  I  am  sure  that  there  are  always 
hundreds  of  them  in  this  city,  and  that  they  need  help  and 
consolation ;  shall  I  always  be  on  the  road  from  one  to  the 
other  ?  And  what  is  to  become  of  my  own  affairs  in  the 
meanwhile  ?  Shall  I  calmly  neglect  them  and  always  look 
out  for  others  ?  There  are  hundreds  of  families  in  the  land 
whom  I  might  assist,  by  word  and  by  deed,  in  bettering  their 
conditions:  shall  I  visit  all  of  them,  shall  I  look  for  them, 
advise  them  and  help  tliem  ?  Is  this  the  meaning  of  the 
commandment  of  love  of  neighbor? 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  in  that  case  I  should  have  neither 
time  nor  strength  left  for  myself  and  my  own  business. 
The  commandment  would  defeat  itself.  If  it  were  a  duty, 
always  and  under  all  circumstances,  first  to  look  after  the 
affairs  of  others,  before  attending  to  one's  own,  the  perfect 
fulfilment  of  the  law  by  all  would  lead  to  a  complete  confu- 
sion of  all  human  things,  to  an  absurd  interchange  of  duties. 
If  every  one  would  follow  Jesus's  advice  to  the  rich  young 
man  and  "  sell  whatsoever  he  hath  and  give  to  the  poor,"  the 
result  would  be  a  ceaseless  circulation  of  commodities,  or 
rather  there  would  be  no  one  left  to  buy  and  receive  them. 
The  law  taken  universally  destroys  itself.  It  presupposes 
that  there  are  others  wlio  desire  to  buy  and  receive,  regard- 
less of  the  law. 

This  commandment  must,  therefore,  be  somewhat  re- 
stricted, or  more  narrowly  defined,  if  it  is  to  hold  as  a  uni- 
versal moral  law.  We  may  perhaps  consider  the  matter  from 
the  following  points  of  view. 

(1)  The  duty  to  care  for  the  welfare  of  others  is  limited, 
first,  by  the  duties  which  grow  out  of  one^s  own  life.  The 
individuars  first  duty  is  to  develop  and  exercise  the  capacities 
and  powers  which  are  given  him,  and  to  make  his  own  life 
beautiful  and  good.  His  own  individual  life  is  the  field  which 
it  is  his  special  mission  to  cultivate.     For  this  work   he  is 


640  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

especially  fitted  by  natural  inclination  and  insiglit.  In  the 
last  analysis,  every  man  knows  what  is  good  for  him  better 
than  anybody  else.  Care  for  the  welfare  of  others  should 
therefore  not  prevent  the  performance  of  this  most  immediate 

duty. 

This  principle  undoubtedly  governs  our  actual  behavior  and 

judgment.     If  a  rich  and  talented  young  man,  alarmed  by  the 

command  of  the  Gospel,  were  to  sell  his  small  inheritance 

and  give  to  the  poor,  if  he  were  to  abandon  his  studies  and 

nurse  the  sick  in  their  homes  or  in  the  hospitals,  without 

being  specially    qualified    for    such    work,   we    should   not 

approve  of  his  course.    We  should  praise  his  self-sacrifice 

and  humility,  but  we  should  not  applaud  his  conduct  and  set 

it  up  as  an  example  for  others  to  follow,  nay,  we  should 

even  say  that  he  could  and  ought  to  have  put  his  talents  to 

better  use.    Had  he  quietly  continued  his  studies,  had  he 

become  an  able  physician,  preacher,  or  teacher,  his  own  life 

would  have  been  richer  and  more   beautiful,  and  he  could 

have  done  more  for  others.     And  so  we  shall  be  obliged  to 

say  :  Each  person  does  the  most  for  himself  and  others  when 

he  makes  the  most  of  himself.     Raphael  and  Goethe  benefited 

humanity  simply  by  unfolding  the  inborn  capacities  of  their 

natures.  _         „  .  .  v    i.   ••  u* 

Wenn  die  Rose  selbst  sich  schmuckt, 

Schmiickt  sie  auch  den  Garten. 

We  cannot  question  the  validity  of  the  universal  propoLv 
tion.  The  difficulty  lies  in  its  application  to  concrete  condi- 
tions. Is  a  particular  act  which  I  do  for  others  compatible 
with  my  own  duties  ?  My  friend  is  sick,  I  devote  my  entire 
time  to  his  cure,  without  hesitation.  But  he  remains  an 
invalid;  the  physicians  send  him  to  a  different  climate; 
shall  I,  can  I,  accompany  him,  sacrifice  my  education,  my 
life  for  him  ?  This  cannot  be  decided  by  the  general  for- 
mula of  duty,  but  only  by  a  consideration  of  the  concrete  cir- 
cumstances; it  will  ultimately  be  decided  not  by  the  reason 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


641 


but  by  the  heart.  And,  as  a  rule,  we  shall  feel  inclined  to 
applaud  the  man  who  obeys  his  heart  more  than  his  reason  in 
these  things.  We  admire  the  heroism  of  a  woman  who 
resolves  to  follow  her  husband  into  solitude,  into  exile,  or  into 
imprisonment.  We  respect  the  sister  of  charity  who  sacri- 
fices her  life  and  gives  up  everything  to  nurse  strangers  upon 
their  sick-beds  during  the  long  weary  days  and  nights.  We 
say  it  is  altogether  possible  that  such  a  nature  develops  and 
exercises  the  gifts  with  which  it  is  endowed,  a  warm  heart, 
a  skilful  and  tender  hand,  a  consoling  courage,  most  perfectly 
in  such  a  calling,  and  so  realizes  the  fullest  and  most  beau- 
tiful form  of  life  possible.     But  —  what  is  good  for  one  is  not 

good  for  all. 

(2)  The  duty  of  caring  for  the  welfare  of  my  neighbor  must 
be  limited  in  another  way  ;  I  must  guard  against  destroying 
his  independence.  My  act  must  not  weaken  his  indepen- 
dence ;  otherwise  it  ceases  to  be  beneficent,  nay,  it  may  become 
an  evil,  for  self-reliance  is  a  general  precondition  of  a 
healthy  and  normal  life.  The  object  of  all  help  is,  after  all, 
to  make  help  superfluous.  The  matter  is  self-evident  when 
it  comes  to  systematic  and  permanent  aid.  In  education  we 
have  an  example  of  the  most  comprehensive  and  deliberate 
care  for  others.  It  is  governed  solely  by  the  consideration 
that  we  must  train  the  pupil  so  that  he  can  take  care  of 
himself.  We  call  a  mother  irrational  who  cannot  resist  her 
child's  entreaties  to  prepare  his  lessons  for  him,  we  cannot 
praise  a  father  who  constantly  undertakes  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems for  his  young  son  which  life  is  beginning  to  put  to  him. 
Not  to  solve  problems,  but  to  put  the  proper  problems,  that 
is  the  real  function  of  the  educator.  In  no  human  relation 
has  true  beneficence  a  different  function,  —it  realizes  its  end 
only  when  it  succeeds  in  making  the  person  self-sustaining. 
This  is  especially  true  of  all  economic  assistance :  the 
problem  is  to  remove  the  need  for  help. 

(S)   There  is  finally  a  third  restriction,  or,  rather,  narrower 

41 


642 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


643 


'H 


determination,  of  the  universal  duty  of  love  of  neighbor :  that 
made  necessary  by  our  special  duties  toward  special  neighbors. 
Every  man  is  related   to   persons  who  have   special   claims 
upon  his  benevolence  and  active  sympathy,  —  to  children  and 
parents,  relatives  and  friends,  servants  and  laborers,  neighbors 
and  inmates  of  the  same  house.     His  strength  and  possessions 
belong  to  these  first  of  all.    If  any  one  were  to  give  away 
his  fortune  to  strangers  and  beggars  or  to  all  kinds  of  chari- 
table enterprises,  and   were  to  let  the  members  of  his  own 
household   suffer  want,  or  if  a  mother  were  to   accept  the 
presidency  of  seven  benevolent  associations,  and  shamefully  to 
neglect  her  own  children,  we  should  not  be  very  lenient  in  our 
judgment  of  them.   We  should  say :  first  duty,  then  the  super- 
erogatory ;    first  perform  your  particular  duties    and    then 
search  for  further  problems  to  solve.     By  these  special  con- 
ditions the  virtue  of  charity  or  love  of  neighbor  is  confined  to 
a  fixed  channel,  as  it  were,  through  which  it  flows  as  a  per- 
manent stream  and  fructifies  its  banks.    Here,  too,  everybody 
knows  with  some  degree  of  certainty  what  is  good  for  those 
nearest  to  him,  but  it  is  much  more  difficult  and  often  impos- 
sible to  tell  how  to  help  strangers.     And  here,  too,  we  must 
think  of  the  collective  bodies  to  which  the  individual  belongs. 
The  community  and  the  nation  have  legitimate  claims  upon 
him,  and  their  permanent  charitable  institutions  supply  him 
with  a  safe  channel  in  which  to  exercise  his  sympathy  with 

others'  welfare. 

The  formula  of  the  love  of  neighbor.  Care  for  the  welfare 
of  others,  must  therefore  be  limited  and  supplemented  as 
follows  :  In  so  far  as  this  can  be  done  without  neglecting  the 
problems  of  your  own  life,  without  violating  the  special  duties 
which  arise  from  your  special  relations  to  individuals  and 
collective  bodies,  and  finally,  without  weakening  the  self- 
reliance  of  others. 

2.  Common-sense,  by  beneficence,  means  above  all  so-called 
almsgiving,  and  popular  opinion  is  to  this  day  somewhat  in- 


clined to  regard  almsgiving  as  absolutely  meritorious ;  hence 
a  word  about  it  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Moral  philosophy  cannot  subscribe  to  this  view,  except  to  a 
very  limited  extent.  Promiscuous  almsgiving  perhaps  results 
in  more  evil  than  good.  It  is  particularly  apt  to  violate  the 
second  of  the  above  mentioned  provisions :  it  has  neither  the 
intention  nor  the  eifect  of  making  the  recipient  economically 
independent;  only  too  often  does  it  educate  parasites,  who 
are  a  pleasure  neither  to  themselves  nor  to  others.  We  give  a 
beggar  an  alms.  The  direct  effect  is  that  the  man's  hunger  is 
satisfied.  But  another  effect  necessarily  follows  :  the  recip- 
ient is  taught  to  expect  that  the  next  time  he  is  hungry  some 
one  will  feed  him  again.  The  gift  will  therefore  encourage 
him  to  believe  that  there  is  another,  perhaps  more  successful 
and  at  any  rate  more  convenient,  means  of  gaining  a  liveli- 
hood than  labor,  that  is,  begging.  If  a  beggar's  life  is  not 
a  good  life,  then  almsgiving,  which  promotes  beggary,  is  not 
beneficence.  —  We  frequently  hear  people  complaining  of  the 
impudence  of  mendicants :  Here  comes  the  same  young  beg- 
gar who  was  here  yesterday ;  but  won't  I  give  him  a  piece  of 
my  mind  !  —  It  seems  to  me  the  beggar  might  say :  I  see 
nothing  impudent  in  my  behavior ;  I  was  hungry  yesterday  and 
you  gave  me  money  to  satisfy  my  hunger ;  conditions  are  pre- 
cisely what  they  were  yesterday ;  why  do  you  want  to  behave 
differently  to-day  ?  I  am  not  impudent,  but  you  are  incon- 
sistent. I  trusted  in  your  tacit  declaration  that  you  would 
support  me  in  case  of  need ;  consequently  I  have  come  back, 
and  now  you  want  to  abuse  me  ?  —  I  do  not  see  what  answer 
the  almsgiver  could  make,  except  this :  I  did  not  clearly  see 
what  I  was  doing  yesterday,  and  therefore  beg  your  pardon 
for  having  raised  expectations  which  I  cannot  or  will  not 
fulfil.  And  perhaps  he  might,  to  be  thoroughly  honest,  say 
to  himself:  When  I  gave  the  alms, nothing  was  really  further 
from  my  thoughts  than  the  welfare  of  the  stranger;  it  was 
simply  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  him.     Habit,  convenience,  or 


I! 


644  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

perhaps  the  fear  of  a  wicked  face,  prompted  me  to  put  my 

hand  into  my  pocket. 

Indeed,  true  charity  acts  differently.     It  tries,  first  of  all, 
to  find   out  what  is  the   cause   of  the  trouble ;   without  a 
knowledge  of  the  causes  of  the  distress  it  is  absolutely  impos- 
sible to  render  assistance.     Promiscuous  almsgiving  is  like 
quackery,  which,  without  investigating  the  disease,  prescribes 
a  cure-all.     If  the  trouble  is  due  to  an  unhappy  accident, 
causing  temporary  embarrassment,   the   philanthropist  will 
help  to  overcome  it  by  word  and  by  deed.     If  it  is  due  to 
permanent  disability,  he  will  endeavor  to  assist  the  person 
in  obtaining  permanent  support.     If  aversion  to  work  is  the 
reason  for  mendicancy,  he  will  refuse  to  recognize  and  foster 
this  branch  of  industry  by  alms.     Of  course,  it  is  much  easier 
to  give  the  beggar  a  nickel  and  to  dismiss  him  than  to  take 
an  interest  in  him,  which  latter  indeed  may  not  always  be 
possible,  owing  to  the  "  anonymousness  "  of  metropolitan  life. 
But  whoever  cannot  or  will  not  help  has  no  right  to  dabble 
in  the  affairs  of  a  fellow-man.     Of  late  years,  the  authorities 
have  repeatedly  prohibited  the  giving  of  alms  to  mendicant 
vagabonds  ;  a  measure  which  is  justifiable  in  principle.   Care- 
less  beneficence  is  really  maleficence,  a  crime  against  the 
beggar,  whom  it  encourages,  as  well  as  against  others,  who 
arrtempted  by   the  example  to  follow  the  same  life,  and 
finally  also  against  those   who  are  overrun  by  the  army  of 
tramps  which  owes  its  existence  to  such  negligence.     If  the 
flooding  of  a  country  with  beggars  is  a  plague,  it  is  evidently 
an  offence  against  the  welfare  of  the  country  to  encourage 
the  thing.    To  be  sure,  the  prohibition  of  mendicancy  and 
almsgiving  ought  simply  to  be  the  other  side  of  organized 
public   charity,  which  finds   work   for  the  unemployed   and 

helps  those  in  need. 

Moreover,  we  must  not  imagine  that  almsgiving  to  beggars 
and  tramps  is  the  only  form  of  careless  charity.  There  are, 
beside  these  vulgar  forms,   also  elegant  forms  of  begging, 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


645 


which  are  no  less  dangerous  to  welfare.  How  many  a  great 
house  scatters  the  germs  of  ruin  among  its  clients  in  the 
shape  of  presents,  gifts,  and  favors!  They  are  pampered, 
made  covetous,  shameless,  beggarly,  envious,  mendacious,  thiev- 
ish, and  the  consequence  is  their  benefactors  usually  grow  tired 
of  them,  and,  if  possible,  get  rid  of  them  by  referring  them 
to  some  public  charity.  In  such  houses  much  is  said  of  the 
wickedness  and  ingratitude  of  the  human  race.  The  story  is 
told  that  Max  Joseph,  the  first  King  of  Bavaria,  received  from 
the  general  treasurer  one  thousand  guldens  every  morning  for 
"  charity."  When  this  sum  was  spent  —  and  it  did  not  last 
very  long,  for  beggars  and  needy  persons  of  every  rank  and 
station  crowded  around  him  as  soon  as  he  made  his  appear- 
ance,—  "he  gave  orders  upon  the  bankers,  the  sinking-fund, 
the  lottery-fund,  the  war-economy-treasury.  His  mania  for 
giving  was  carefully  nourished  by  those  who  benefited  by  it, 
and  he  grew  indignant  at  every  measure  of  economy,  regard- 
ing it  as  an  encroachment  upon  his  rights.  While  money 
was  wanting  for  the  most  urgent  needs,  and  the  officials 
had  to  wait  for  their  salaries  for  months,  the  beggars  lived 
in  luxury."  ^ 

This  form  of  "  charity  "  was  evidently  a  perversion  of  the 
duties  of  the  royal  office,  a  crime  against  the  subjects  from 
whose  pockets  the  money  was  taken,  and  against  the  parasites 
whom  it  raised.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  multitude's  weakness 
for  show,  that  kings  and  lords  of  this  kind  enjoy  their  favor 
and  are  loved  and  praised  for  their  "  goodness."  There  is  a 
good  Italian  proverb :  Si  buon  che  vol  niente,  so  good  that  he 
is  good  for  nothing. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  Christianity  has  fostered  this 
kind  of  beneficence.  Passages  are  not  wanting  in  the  New 
Testament  which  suggest  such  a  confusion  of  love  of  neigh- 
bor with  almsgiving,  and  at  the  same  time  seem  to  recom- 

1  Perthes,  PoUt.  Persmen  und  Zustdnde  zur  Zeit  der  franzosischen  Revolution, 
L,  2,  448. 


i 


' 


646  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

mend  almsgiving  as  promising  future  retribution.    A  passage 
from  Chrysostom,  which  I  quote  from  Uhlhorn's  work,  Die 
Liebesthdtigkeit  in  der  alien  Kirche,^  shows  this  perversion 
in  a  marked  degree.     He  praises  charity  :  "  She  is  the  queen 
among  the  virtues,  who  swiftly  raises  man  into  the  heavens, 
and  is  the  best  mediator.     Charity  has  mighty  wings ;  she 
pierces  the  air,  lifts  herself  beyond  the  moon,  rises  above  the 
beaming  sun,  and  extends  to  the  heights  of  heaven.     But  she 
does  not  rest  there;  she   penetrates  the  heavens,  hastens 
through  the  hosts  of  angels  and  the  choir  of  the  archangels 
and  all  the  higher  hosts,  and  places  herself  before  the  throne 
of  the  King  himself.     Learn  this  from  the  Holy  Scripture, 
which  says :  '  Cornelius,  thy  prayer  is  heard,  and  thine  alms 
are  had  in  remembrance  in  the  sight  of  God.'     This  means  : 
Though  you  have  many  sins,  if  you  have  alms  for  your  inter- 
cessor, fear  not ;  they  call  for  the  payment  of  the  debt  and 
bear  the  signature  in  their  hands."     In  another  place  he  com- 
pares almsgiving  to  the  prices  at  the  fair :  "  Here  we  buy 
justice  cheaply,  for  a  piece  of  bread,  a  worn-out  coat,  a  drink 
of  cold  water.     So  long  as  the  fair  lasts  let  us  buy  our  sal- 
vation with  alms."     It  is  plain,  here  the  object  is  no  longer 
the  welfare  of  others,  but  one's  own  good  —  whether  in  this 
world  or  in  the  world  to  come  is  immaterial.     And  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  welfare  of  others  cannot  be  promoted  by 
such  charity,  which  is  solely  intent  upon  purchasing  rewards 
or  exemption  from  punishment.     Still,  I  am  far  from  believ- 
ing that  the  charity  practised  by  the  Christian  church  always 
exhibited  this  trait  of  calculating  speculation.     Though  the 
hope  of  reward  was  apt  to  be  mingled  with  it,  it  was  not 
often  the  only  effective  motive.     And  perhaps  Christianity 
did  more  good,  on  the  whole,  in  its  educative  influence,  than 

harm. 

A  particularly   deplorable   form  of  almsgiving  has  been 
developed   of   recent  years:   the   charity-craze.     Misfortune, 

1  P.  272. 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


647 


poverty,  and  misery  are  made  the  pretexts  for  entertainments 
of  all  kinds,  such  as  concerts,  theatrical  performances,  balls, 
bazaars  at  which  elegant  and  beautiful  ladies  bargain,  play, 
and  flirt  with  elegant  and  rich  gentlemen,  all  for  sweet 
charity's  sake.  We  smoke,  we  breakfast,  we  gamble,  we  dance, 
all  for  charity  ;  new-fashioned  mendicant  orders  are  founded, 
with  priors,  decorations,  and  honors,  —  all  for  the  sake  of  the 
poor,  of  course,  but  at  the  same  time  we  enjoy  the  thought  of 
how  kind-hearted  we  are,  which  is  no  more  than  right,  and 
get  a  little  pleasure  for  ourselves,  according  to  the  formula 
in  the  second  part  of  Faust : 

Hoch  ist  der  Doppelgewinn  zu  schiitzen  : 
Barmherzig  sein  und  sich  zugleich  ergetzen.^ 

I  must  confess  that  this  union  of  amusement  and  "  charity  " 
seems  to  me  an  extremely  sad  sign  of  the  times.     This  play- 
ing with  distress  shows  how  insensitive  certain  social  classes 
have  become  to  the   seriousness   and   wretchedness   of  life. 
We  may  say  the  same  of  many  of  the   associations  which 
make  a  specialty  of  collecting  alms.    A   committee   is   ap- 
pointed  to  feed   poor  children ;   the  ladies  X,  Y,  Z,  have 
warm  hearts,  and  it  is  so  interesting  to  belong  to  a  com- 
mittee, to  hold  meetings,  and  to  read  one's  name  in  the  news- 
papers.    A   circular  is  issued,  collectors  are  employed  and 
equipped  with  receipt-books,  for  much  money  is  needed  for 
charity.    And  now  the  charity  begins.    Three  collectors  work 
four  hours  each  day,  for  the  great  families  who  are  visited 
are  late  risers  and,  besides,  they  do  not  like  to  be  disturbed  at 
their  meals.     At  the  end  of  the  year  the  books  are  balanced  : 
five  thousand  marks  have  been  contributed  by  three  thousand 
subscribers ;  from  this  sum  subtract  three  thousand  marks 
for  the  collectors,  printing  of  the  report,  and  advertisements, 
and  you  have  a  sum-total  of  two  thousand  marks  for  charity. 
—  The  collectors  proved  a  veritable  plague  to  those  who  were 

[1  Lo,  now !  what  double  gains  your  deed  requite ! 
You  show  compassion,  and  you  take  delight,] 


648  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

appealed  to.  Have  the  poor  children  been  benefited  ?  I  have 
not  much  faith.  The  sympathy  of  one  individual  for  another 
is  really  helpful,  and  the  systematic  help  of  the  community 
can  at  least  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  am  afraid  that  such  collection-charity,  which  expects  others 
to  do  the  contributing,  like  the  charity-craze,  never  yields 
blessings,  but  simply  rears  greedy  beggars.  It  may  serve  as 
an  excuse  that  the  metropolis  destroys  all  other  personal  re- 
lations  between  the  rich  and  the  poor,  and  yet  the  rich  desire 
to  ease  their  consciences  by  doing  something  for  those  m 
want,  so  they  help  in  the  manner  indicated. 

However,  I  am  not  of  the  opinion  that  societies  for  the 
organized  distribution  of  charity  are  not  good  and  useful. 
^^  association  which  combines  freedom  of  movement  with 
order  and  permanency  is  undoubtedly  an  entirely  suitable 
form  of  charitable  activity.     And  there  are  doubtless  excel- 
lent  and  helpful  societies.     Nor  can  we  altogether  disapprove 
of  the  method  of  inducing  larger  circles  to  make  financial 
contributions.     But  instead  of  angrily  and  moodily  throwing 
a  few  nickels  at  every  collector  who  presents  himself,  the 
givers  should  make  up  their  minds  to  become  active  mem- 
bers  of  some  organization,  of  whose   usefulness  they  have 
convinced  themselves.    If  they  could  only  take  an  active  in- 
terest in  these  enterprises,  their  sympathy  would  be  really 
helpful,  and  their  own  lives  would  be  enriched  thereby. 

3  The  opposite  of  love  of  neighbor  is  heartlesB  selfishness, 
which  seeks  its  own  advantage,  regardless  of  others  or  even 
at  the  expense  of  others.  The  intensification  of  it  is  malice, 
which  takes  pleasure  in  the  distress  and  sufferings  of  others 
even  without  advantage  to  self.  As  cruelty  it  causes  physical 
or  mental  sufferings,  simply  in  order  to  feed  upon  them. 

This  habit  does  not  commonly  express  itself  in  those  brutal 
attacks  upon  the  persons  and  interests  of  others  which  the 
criminal  law  pursues,  but  in  the  thousand  little  inconsiderate, 
malicious  acts  which  are  observed  in  our  daily  intercourse 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


649 


with   men.    Four  or  five   persons   are  sitting  in  a  railroad 
coup^ ;  a  new  traveller  enters,  they  all  stare  at  him  with 
angry  and  hateful  looks,  each  one  seeming  to  say  :    Don't 
come  near  me !     No  one  dreams  of  offering  him  a  seat,  or  of 
removing  his  baggage ;  we   merely  wait  until  the  intruder 
threatens  to  sit  upon  our  things,  then  we  grumblingly  shove 
them  aside,  or  begin  to  quarrel  with  the  man.     And  so  these 
people  will  sit  together,  side  by  side,  in  the  narrow  com- 
partment making  themselves  as  disagreeable  to  each  other 
as  possible,  in  the  meanwhile  boiling  over  with  rage.     If, 
instead,  one  of  the  passengers  had  politely  made  room  for 
the  new-comer,  a  pleasant  feeling  would  have  been  aroused 
at  once,  and  perhaps  a  friendly  conversation  might  have  been 
begun,  bringing  into  the  tiresome  railroad  journey  sociability 
and  good  cheer.     These  are  little  things,  but  life  is  made  up 
of  little  things,  and  our  moods  are  determined  much  more 
by  such  countless  daily  trifles  than  by  the  great  and  unusual 
occurrences.     There  are  persons  who  are  always  waiting  for 
an  opportunity  to   perform   some   great   and  heroic   act   of 
charity,  who  even  believe  that  they  would  be  ready  to  sacri- 
fice themselves  if  need  be;  and  in  the  meantime  they  arc 
wearing  away  their  own  lives  and  those  of  their  fellowmen 
with  their  petty  troubles  and  malicious  remarks. 

Besides,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  plain  people 
treat  each  other  with  much  more  consideration  than  the 
members  of  so-called  good  society.  Among  the  latter  an 
accidental  collision  soon  leads  to  a  bitter  discussion ;  while 
the  matter  is  at  once  passed  off  with  a  jest  among  the  former. 
The  general  inclination  to  take  life  easy  is  manifested  in 
intercourse  by  the  tendency  to  make  the  life  of  others  easy 
and  cheerful.  Among  the  so-called  educated  the  fear  of 
lowering  one's  dignity  is  always  alive.  Politeness  and  civility 
are  regarded  as  a  sign  of  self-debasement,  as  a  lowering  of 
one's  dignity.  A  repellent  nature  says  to  others  :  Come  on, 
I  am  not  afraid  of  you !     There  is  a  kind  of  starched-linen 


650 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


haughtiness  which  is  always  on  the  look-out  lest  some  one 
should  become  too  familiar  or  presume  to  be  somebody.  Per- 
sons  may  even  be  found,  who  will,  with  a  kind  of  secret 
pleasure,  observe  others  doing  what  they  can  interpret  as 
offences  against  their  own  persons,  so  that  they  may  after- 
wards have  the  satisfaction  of  becoming  angry  and  of  holding 
it  up  to  them.  Yes,  if  you  ask  them  beforehand  whether  they 
approve  of  a  certain  course  or  not,  they  will  lead  you  astray, 
simply  that  they  may  afterwards  grumblingly  and  ill-humoredly 
complain  of  the  suffered  wrong.  It  is  arrogance  which  in- 
spires such  conduct ;  we  do  not  like  to  appear  in  the  role  of 
needing  considerate  treatment  and  of  asking  for  it ;  it  looks 
more  lordly  and  more  elegant  first  to  act  indifferently  and  to 
become  angry  afterwards.  And  hence  haughtiness  does  not 
deserve  the  last  place  among  the  plagues  of  humanity.  The 
church  is  right  in  reckoning  it  among  the  seven  deadly  sins. 

A  field  in  which  cold-heartedness  and  malice  are  particu- 
larly common,  deserves  mention  here  :  the  habit,  namely,  of 
sitting  in  judgment  upon  one's  neighbor.     Everything  that  the 
latter  says  or  does  is  misconstrued  and  spitefully  exposed  to 
the   ridicule  and  ill-will  of  his  fellows.     An  evil  or  a  base 
motive  is  always  imputed  to  him,  his  prosperity  is  attributed  to 
evil  means,  his  misfortune  is  regarded  as  his  own  doing.    He 
belongs  to  the  Liberal  party :  of  course  he  receives  Jewish 
money.    He  votes  the  Conservative  ticket :  why,  to  be  sure,  he 
is  fawning  upon  his  superiors.    He  is  successful  in  business,  he 
becomes  rich :  he  is  certainly  a  swindler,  and  owes  his  suc- 
cess to  crooked  methods.    He  meets  with  literary  success  :  all 
those  who  are  not  so  fortunate  at  once  agree  that  it  is  because 
he  appeals  to  people  who  have  no  judgment ;  why,  of  course, 
if  we  desired  to  cater  to  the  vulgar  tastes  of  the  public,  or 
to  flatter  the  intellectual  indolence  and  superficiality  of  the 
reader,  we  could  be  famous  too,  — if  we  were  not  above  such 
things !     A    girl   makes  a  good  match ;  all  those  who  were 
striving  for  the  same  good  fortune  at  once  begin  to  tell  how 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


651 


she  encouraged  the  man,  what  means  she  employed  to  catch 
him.  —  As  a  rule,  it  is  envy  that  pronounces  judgment  upon 
our  dear  brother  and  then  with  lynx  eyes  discovers  the  rea- 
sons for  his  fault.  But  pure  malice  also  suffices ;  nothing  in 
this  world  affords  the  malicious  man  greater  pleasure  than 
the  sight  of  the  stains  upon  the  honor  of  his  fellow. 

It  is  this  base  tendency  in  human  nature  which  the  Gospel 
attacks  with  such  zeal.  Even  if  your  opinion  is  correct,  it  is 
not  your  mission  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  your  neighbor.  He 
is  not  accountable  to  you  but  to  God,  and  in  His  sight  you  are 
no  less  guilty  than  he.  Hence, "  Judge  not  that  ye  be  not 
judged,  condemn  not  that  ye  be  not  condemned." 

The  opposite  of  unfeelingness  is  love,  as  Paul  describes  it : 
"  It  suffereth  long  and  is  kind,  envieth  not  and  vaunteth  not 
itself,  is  not  puffed  up,  it  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly, 
seeketh  not  her  own,  is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil, 
rejoicetli  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth  ;  beareth 
all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all 

things." 

The  thirteenth  chapter  of  Corinthians  has  been  called  the 
Song  of  Love  Qiohe  Lied  der  Liehe).  Perhaps  we  may  more 
properly  call  it  the  simplest  description  of  love  in  its  most 
modest  form,  of  the  little  workaday,  homespun  love  of  neigh- 
bor, the  love  which  does  not  vaunt  itself,  which  does  nothing 
extraordinary  and  grand  and  sensational,  which  does  not  give 
its  body  to  be  burned,  or  give  its  possessions  to  the  poor,  but 
simply  consists  in  taking  and  bearing  the  neighbor  as  he  is, 
which  does  not  court  favors  from  him  but  meets  him  every 
day  with  the  same  and  greater  kindness.  This  is  the  real, 
true  love  of  neighbor,  and  when  it  enters  a  house  it  brings 
happiness,  not  the  great  happiness  of  which  people  speak, 
but  the  little  workaday  happiness,  the  true  happiness.  And 
this  love  and  happiness  as  gladly  abides  in  modest  homes  as 
in  proud  palaces,  or  much  rather  ;  at  any  rate  it  desires  to 
dwell  in  modest  hearts  alone,  not  in  haughty  and  covetous  souls. 


;,  I 


652 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


653 


3-1 


4.  The  significance  of  love  of  neighbor  for  human  conduct 
hardly  needs  further  comment  after  all  we  have  said :  it 
diminishes  suffering  and  want,  it  increases  welfare  and 
happiness,  it  unites  hearts  in  affection  and  trust. 

The  immediate  effect  of  active  benevolence  is  that  it 
lightens,  elevates,  and  promotes  the  life  of  him  upon  whom 
it  is  bestowed.  It  also  inspires  him  with  courage  and  confi- 
dence for  the  future.  It  at  the  same  time  fills  him  with 
kindly  feelings,  not  only  towards  the  benefactor  but  towards 
the  whole  world ;  charity  wants  to  be  passed  along,  to  go 
from  hand  to  hand,  without  end.  Even  when  the  helping 
hand  does  not  succeed  in  removing  the  misery,  the  bitterness 
of  the  pain  is  assuaged  by  sympathy  and  condolence.  The 
heart  that  would  pine  away  and  famish  in  solitude  and  neg- 
lect again  revives,  patience  and  hope  or  resignation  enter  the 
soul,  and  make  life  bearable.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
unfortunate  one  is  repelled  and  meets  with  harshness,  it  fills 
his  heart  with  the  bitterest  feelings,  it  ultimately  hardens  it, 
making  it  misanthropic  and  wicked. 

How  many  a  criminal  may  trace  the  beginning  of  his 
career  to  unkind,  repellent  treatment  in  misfortune!  If  a 
helping  hand  had  been  extended  at  the  right  moment,  it 
might  have  saved  a  human  soul  from  destruction.  It  was  not 
offered,  the  first  step  upon  the  wrong  path  was  taken  and 
drew  all  the  others  after  it,  until  the  road  ended  in  the  peni- 
tentiary. Want  and  bitterness  over  their  helplessness,  in  the 
opinion  of  an  experienced  official  in  the  criminal  service,  brings 
one  half  of  all  criminals  to  the  .penitentiary.^  "  From  the 
cradle  to  the  grave,  the  sun  of  life  does  not  smile  upon  them, 
they  see  only  the  rough  side  of  life.  So  long  as  they  can 
remember,  they  have  suffered  this  undeserved  lot ;  they,  the 
serfs  of  misery  and  neglect,  look  with  envy  upon  their  unde- 
servedly happier  fellows.     And  to  their  envy  are  joined  feelings 

1  H.  von  Valentiui,  Das   Verbrechertum  im  Preusstschen  Staate  (1869),  a  book 
which  contains  many  suggestive  facts. 


of  hatred  on  account  of  the  harshness  and  pride  of  the  latter,  a 
hatred  which  is  quite  natural  in  view  of  the  superciliousness 
with  which  these  regard  them,  —  as  though  their  respective 
stations  in  life  were  the  result  of  individual  merit  or  individual 
demerit."  It  is  made  easy  for  those  reared  in  love  on  "  the 
sunny  side  of  life  "  to  believe  in  eternal  love,  but  how  shall 
these  children  of  the  night  attain  to  faith,  hope,  and  love  ? 
There  is  only  one  way,  charitable  love.  Harshness  will  not 
avail :  it  simply  hardens  them  and  makes  them  morose.  But 
even  love  cannot  heal  with  tenderness  and  softness :  it  must 
wield  the  strong  rod  of  discipline. 

Active  benevolence,  however,  also  enriches  and  blesses  the 
life  of  him  who  practises  it.  We  are  not  made  poorer  by 
giving,  says  an  old  proverb ;  ^  certainly  not,  we  are  made 
richer,  if  not  in  outward,  at  least  in  inner  blessings.  There  is 
no  purer,  no  more  beautiful  and  lasting  joy  than  that  acquired 
by  beneficence.  The  poorest  little  favor  or  service  which  you 
unselfishly  offer  the  stranger  whom  you  meet  upon  the  street, 
has  the  power  to  yield  you  lasting  pleasure  in  memory.  And 
the  pleasure  is  the  intenser  and  the  more  lasting,  the  more  you 
suppress  your  sensuous  selfish  inclinations  in  doing  the  deed. 
The  triumph  of  our  selfish  inclinations,  on  the  contrary,  over 
the  wishes  and  purposes  of  others  always  leaves  a  bitter 
after-taste,  the  bitterer,  the  greater  the  sacrifice  of  others' 
welfare  at  which  it  w  as  bought.  It  has  therefore  been  said, 
not  unjustly,  that  the  straight  way  to  one's  own  happiness  is  to 
work  for  the  happiness  of  others.  A  benevolent  heart  that  is 
free  from  envy  is  the  best  endowment  even  so  far  as  one's  in- 
dividual happiness  is  concerned.  The  pleasure  which  it  arouses 
in  its  surroundings  is  reflected  back  upon  it,  and  calls  forth 
sympathetic  emotions.  Perhaps,  the  only  time  you  share  in 
the  happiness  of  others,  wholly  without  envy,  is  when  you  have 

1  [Compare  the  verse  in  Proverbs,  XI.,  24 :  "There  is  that  scattereth  and  yet 
increaseth ;  and  there  is  that  withholdeth  more  than  is  meet,  but  it  tendeth  to 
poverty."    "  The  liberal  soul  shall  be  made  fat."  —  Tr.] 


654 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


helped  to  make  it.  Benevolence  wins  confidence  and  affec- 
tion ;  there  is  no  commodity  which  bears  greater  interest  and 
makes  one  so  happy  as  this,  and  it  may  be  acquired  anew 
every  day.  And  do  not  believe  that  you  must  be  a  rich  man 
or  a  great  lord  in  order  to  do  good.  No  one  is  too  poor  or  too 
weak  to  do  good ;  the  kind  word,  the  little  favor,  is  a  hun- 
dred times  more  desirable  and  not  rarely  infinitely  more 
valuable  than  great  favors  or  rich  gifts.  No  man  need  be 
deprived  of  the  blessing  and  pleasure  of  doing  good.  When 
you  feel  utterly  miserable  and  in  desperate  straits,  I  once 
heard  a  preacher  say,  ask  yourself  whether  there  is  not  a 
single  person  in  the  world  whom  you  can  make  happy. 

And  the  reverse  is  also  true.     There  is  no  surer  way  to 
unhappiness   than   a  selfish  heart.     Intent  solely  upon  his 
own  happiness  or  what  his  momentary  desires  picture  to  him 
as  such,  the  egoist  sees  nothing  but  rivals  around  him  who 
are  making  for  the  same  goal  and  endeavoring  to  outstrip 
him.     In  his   breathless  haste  he  is  constantly  goaded  by 
fear  and  hatred  to  exert  his  utmost  efforts.     And  notwith- 
standing all   this,  some  one   outstrips  him,  and  now   envy 
is  tearing  his  vitals,  the  bitterest  of  all  feelings,  the  grief 
aroused  by  the  success  of  others,  poisoned  by  the  pain  of 
his   own   defeat.     Contentment   can   never  find   a  place  in 
a   man  of  pronounced   selfishness:   envy,  hatred,   and  fear 
constantly   harrow  his   soul   and  never   give  him   peace  or 
let  him  enjoy  what  he  has  achieved.  — In  addition  to  this, 
selfishness   arouses   distrust  and    aversion   in   the  surround- 
ings, feelings   which   manifest  themselves   in  unkind  deeds 
and  malicious  joy.     Let  the  tyrant  attempt  to  deceive  him- 
self with  the  saying,  I  care   not  whether  they  hate  me   so 
long  as  they  fear  me :  —  the  day  will  come  when  the  hatred 
will  triumph  in  spite  of  the  fear. 

Therefore :  benevolence  brings  peace  and  joy ;  selfishness 
arouses  enmity  and  unhappiness;  love  is  life;  selfishness, 
death. 


LOVE   OF  NEIGHBOR 


655 


5.  Let  me  say  a  word  about  gratitude.  Thankfulness  is 
the  feeling  aroused  in  a  healthy  soul  by  benevolence  and 
beneficence ;  the  permanent  state  is  devotion  or  piety.  Grati- 
tude naturally  tends  to  encourage  benevolence,  while  in- 
gratitude discourages  it:  it  is  the  declaration,  so  to  speak, 
that  assistance  and  good  will  have  been  wasted  upon  the 
recipient,  for  otherwise  how  could  he  fail  joyfully  and  grate- 
fully to  acknowledge  the  kindness  ?  Wasted  also  so  far  as 
the  benefactor  is  concerned :  frequent  disappointments  of  this 
kind  can  change  a  philanthropist  into  a  misanthrope. 

The  complaint  of  the  ingratitude  of  man  is  a  common 
theme  of  pessimistic  eloquence.  And  we  shall  have  to  con- 
fess that  human  nature,  in  general,  has  a  better  memory 
for  injuries  than  for  benefits.  The  psychological  explana- 
tion is  that  gratitude  does  not  flatter  our  vanity  like  re- 
venge. Gratitude  seems  to  express  inferiority ;  revenge,  on 
the  contrary,  is  so  sweet  because  it  is  connected  with  an 
intensification  of  self-love.  I  was  down  when  he  wounded  me 
and  defeated  me ;  now  I  have  shown  him  what  I  can  do. 
When  gratitude  has  the  same  effect,  when  it  can  show  itself 
by  retaliation,  we  may  count  upon  it  much  more  readily  than 
when  it  can  be  expressed  only  by  devotion.  But  this  re- 
lation is  often  obscured  by  feigned  gratitude,  which  is  ready 
with  words,  but  not  with  deeds.  La  Rochefoucauld's  remark 
applies  to  feigned  gratitude :  "  Gratitude  is  mostly  nothing 
but  the  declaration  of  a  man's  willingness  to  accept  further 
benefits." 

Besides,  we  might  also  offer  as  a  defense  of  human  nature 
against  the  charge  of  ingratitude  the  fact  that  pure  and  un- 
selfish benevolence,  benevolence  which  is  rational  and  really 
beneficent,  is  not  very  common  either.  Perhaps  ingratitude 
is  just  as  common  as  selfish  and  irrational  "beneficence." 
When  the  apish  love  of  sentimental  mothers  reaps  ingrati- 
tude, it  is  a  just  retribution  for  spoiling  the  child;  they 
deserve  no  other  reward,  for  what  they  sought  was  the  satis- 


656 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


faction  of  their  own  impulses.  If  an  extravagant  and  importu- 
nate patron  is  forsaken  as  soon  as  he  has  nothing  more  to 
give,  what  else  does  he  deserve  ?  He  has  as  much  right  to 
complain  of  ingratitude,  as  Rousseau  delicately  puts  it,  as  a 
fisherman  has  of  accusing  the  fish  of  ingratitude  for  hav- 
ing devoured  the  bait  and  not  having  swallowed  the  hook. 
For  this  reason,  too,  it  is  always  absurd  for  nations  to  accuse 
each  other  of  ingratitude. 

Perhaps,  then,  we  may  say  that  sincere  gratitude  is  just 
as  common  as  genuine  benevolence.  Truly  unselfish  benevo- 
lence, which  is  not  working  for  gratitude,  will  readily  receive 
gratitude.  This  is  particularly  apparent  in  all  permanent 
relations  that  are  founded  upon  benevolence :  the  immediate 
natural  effect  of  true  and  rational  beneficence  is  affectionate 
piety.  Parents  who  have  trained  their  children  to  be  honest, 
able,  and  upright  men,  will  have  no  reason  to  complain  of 
ingratitude.  Teachers  who  faithfully  fulfil  their  mission  to 
develop  human  souls  will  not  fail  to  arouse  affectionate 
reverence  in  their  pupils.  A  government  that  remains  true 
to  its  high  mission  to  administer  justice  upon  earth  may 
count  upon  the  obedience  and  the  loyalty  of  its  subjects. 

6.  Benevolence  is  chiefly  concerned  with  the  relation  of 
the  individual  to  the  individual.  It  appears  in  a  new  form 
in  affection  for  and  devotion  to  collective  bodies.  Let  me  add 
a  few  remarks  in  reference  to  this  phase  of  it. 

Feelings  of  good  will  (efJi/ota)  for  collective  bodies  are  mani- 
fested in  three  fundamental  forms  — aside  from  the  family 
union,  where  the  feeling  of  affection  is  still  essentially  an 
individual  affair,  — as  love  of  home,  love  of  country,  and  love 

of  humanity. 

The  tie  that  binds  us  to  these  collective  bodies  is  woven 
of  many  threads.  We  discover  in  it,  first,  feelings  of  affec- 
tion and  piety  for  particular  persons ;  these  are  transferred 
from  the  individuals  to  the  communities  of  which  the  latter 
are  members  and  representatives.    Our  parents  and  ances- 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


667 


it. 


tors,  our  brothers  and  sisters  and  playmates,  our  friends  and 
our  neighbors,  attach  us  in  gratitude  and  love  to  our  homes 
and  the  home-folks.  The  memories  of  our  joys  and  sorrows, 
of  the  games  and  dreams  of  our  childhood,  the  hopes  and 
longings  of  our  youth,  are  interwoven  with  the  native  heath 
and  the  native  skies ;  the  home  customs  are  inseparable  from 
the  home-country.  Thus  the  heart  is  bound  with  a  thousand 
threads  to  the  home ;  the  farther  away  it  is  in  space  and 
time,  the  nearer  it  is  to  the  heart,  the  more  longingly  our 
thoughts  turn  back  to  it.  Through  the  home  we  are  united 
with  the  people  and  the  fatherland ;  the  community  of  spirit- 
ual life,  as  it  is  immediately  expressed  in  language,  the  com- 
munity of  historical  life,  the  common  reverence  of  the  heroes 
and  leaders  of  the  people  in  war  and  victory  as  well  as  in 
the  works  of  peace,  bind  us  together  in  common  feelings, 
thoughts,  and  beliefs.  The  life  of  the  people  is  the  soil  on 
which  the  individual  life  grows;  from  it  the  latter  absorbs 
whatever  of  life  and  strength,  mental  and  moral  excellence 
it  possesses.  Hence  the  individual  is  bound  to  his  country 
by  ties  of  gratitude,  reverence,  love  and  affection.  To  these 
are  added  pride  ;  a  common  honor  binds  the  individual  to  his 
home  and  his  people;  it  even  continues  where  the  bond  of 
love  has  been  severed.  The  exile  who  leaves  his  home  full 
of  anger  and  hatred  discovers  in  strange  lands  that  his  heart 
cannot  forget  his  native  heath.  In  foreign  parts  he  learns 
to  appreciate  the  value  of  his  home,  which  forms  an  inalien- 
able endowment  of  his  soul.  The  respect  for  his  own  people 
comes  back  to  him,  and  prepares  the  soil  for  new  feelings 
of  attachment  and  love.  The  home  and  the  people,  finally, 
also  unite  the  individual  to  humanity.  The  nation  with 
its  historical  life  appropriates  the  great  spiritual  goods  of 
humanity,  assimilating  them  in  its  own  peculiar  way,  and 
each  member  of  the  people  participates  in  the  life  of  human- 
ity, and  thankfully  acknowledges  his  membership  in  the  great 
kingdom  of  spirits  and  of  God  upon  earth. 

42 


658 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES  AND   DUTIES 


We  are  accustomed  to  regard  our  relations  to  our  own  peo- 
ple as  the  most  important  of  these  relations,  and  this  is  most 
likely  the  truth.    We  call  the   subjective  relation  of  the 
individual  to   his  people  patriotism^  and   this  is  at  present 
reckoned  among  the  highest  virtues   of  man.     The  word  is 
not  yet  old,  and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  it  is   of  foreign 
extraction.     It  was  borrowed  from  the  French  during  the  last 
century,  a  sign  that  the  thing  itself  is  not  old  and  not  of 
native  origin.     If  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  word  patriot  did  not 
come  into   general   use   until  the  French  revolution.    The 
Jacobins  called  themselves  patriots  in   distinction  from  the 
Royalists.     A   patriot  was  one  who    endeavored    to  make 
the  state  an  affair  of  the  "  people  "  or  to  make  the  people  the 
subjects  of  the  state,  in  distinction  from  those  who  regarded 
the  state  as  belonging  to  the  dynasty.    The  word  patriotism, 
therefore,  to  this  day,  has  especial  reference  to  the  state.    It 
is  used   to  characterize  the  proper  attitude  of  the  individual 
not  so  much  to  the  people  as  to  the  state.     Political  ortho- 
doxy is  always  prone  to  claim  patriotism  for  itself  alone  and 
to  deny  it  to  its  opponents.     The  Jacobins  monopolized  the 
name  patriot  in  revolutionary  France,  as  did  the  advocates  of 
absolutism  in  Prussia  during  the  fifties. 

It  is  plain  that  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  his  people 

is  somewhat  one-sidedly  defined  by  this  term,  not  to  speak 

of  its  misuse  by  parties.     A  man  may  be  deeply  attached  to 

his  people,  he  may  love  it  and  live  for  it  without  exactly 

living  for  the  state.    Nay,  a  certain  indifference  to  and  even 

estrangement  from  the   state  and  politics  may  go  together 

with  a  deep  feeling  of  affection  for  the  people  and  all  that 

concerns   it.     Goethe  was   cei-tainly   a   sincere   child   of  his 

people,  and  was  devotedly  attached  to  everything  German ; 

and  Luther  was  a  thorough  German.     Nevertheless,  we  should 

hardly  call  these  men  patriots :  it  was  not  the  state  for  which 

they  lived,  which  they  loved,  but  the  people.     Indeed,  we  are 

forced  to  say :  We  cannot  love  the  state  as  such,  we  can  only 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


659 


love  a  being ;  the  state,  however,  is  not  a  being,  but  an  institu- 
tion, a  function.  A  people  is  a  being  that  we  can  love ;  the 
state  we  may  esteem,  respect,  be  proud  of,  but  we  cannot 
love   it. 

This   one-sided   accentuation   of  the   individual's   relation 
to  the  state,  moreover,  apparently   depends  upon   the   con- 
dition  of    our  times.     The  life  of   the  European  nations  is 
governed  by  the  ideal  of  nationality,  that  is,  the  desire  to 
construct  national  states.     For  three  generations  passionate 
attempts  have   been  made  to   realize  this  ideal.     I  am  cer- 
tainly  far  from  wishing  to  deny  or  to  lessen  the  value  of 
these    aspirations.      The   state   is   the   natural    form   of    a 
nation's    existence.     Without    the  state    it  is    in   danger  of 
losing  even  its  nationality,  and  hence   no  individual  should 
be    indifferent   to    the  state   as  such.      But  the   one-sided 
conception   of  the   relation   of  the   individual  to  his  people 
prepares   the   way   for   certain   abuses    which   were    hardly 
known  to  former  ages.     Patriotism  is  now  frequently  used 
both  as  an  advertisement  for  party  fanaticism  and  as  a  cloak 
for  chauvinism.     National  arrogance  and  hatred  of  foreigners 
hide   behind   its  name,  and  abuse  every  one  who   does  not 
agree   with  them.     When  it  comes  to  French  or  Bohemian 
patriotism  we  have  no  trouble  in  recognizing  the  ugliness 
and  absurdity  of  the  thing ;  but  it  is  no  more  becoming  to  us 
Germans  than  to  other  nations.     If  patriotism  continues  to 
develop  in  this  direction,  it  will  become  a  morbid  degenera- 
tion and  a  serious  menace  to  the  life  of  the  European  nations. 
If  the  instincts  of  those  nations  whose  history  and  geographi- 
cal position  make  it  advisable  for  them  to  live  together  in 
peace,  continue,  instead,  in  the  direction  of  hatred  and  de- 
struction, they  will,  to  speak  with  the  Apostle,  devour  one 
another.     Do  not  say  that  it  is  a  necessity  for  the  particular 
nation   to   cherish  such  "  patriotic "  feelings   in  view  of  its 
hostile  neighbors.    Are  national  pride,  hatred,  and  contempt 
for  neighboring  nations,  if  not  virtues,  at  least  useful  quali- 


660 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


ties  in  the  struggle  for  existence  ?  I  think  not.  Hate  impels 
men  to  seek  quarrels,  and  pride  turns  their  heads.  But  pride 
goes  before  the  fall:  this  is  as  true  of  nations  as  of  indi- 
viduals. Now,  whoever  does  not  believe  that  it  is  desirable 
for  a  nation  to  hate  and  be  hostile  to  its  neighbors,  cannot 
regard  such  a  disposition  as  a  desirable  endowment.  A 
people  must  have  a  feeling  of  self-respect ;  it  cannot  live  with- 
out it.  But  there  is  a  calm  and  firm  self-reliance,  which 
understands  and  respects  what  is  foreign  and  yet  is  wholly 
conscious  of  its  own  value,  which  desires  to  be  and  to  remain 
what  it  is,  and  does  not  bow  down  before  the  foreign  either 
in  imitation  or  in  consequence  of  force.  Such  a  healthy 
feeling  of  self-respect  is  wholly  compatible  with  respect  for 
and  justice  to  foreigners,  in  the  case  of  individuals  as  well 
as  nations.  Nay,  arrogance  and  hatred  are  really  always 
the  signs  of  an  irritable,  diseased  self-consciousness;  that 
is,  one  that  has  no  confidence  in  itself. 

The  Germans  used  to  pride  themselves  on  their  readiness  to 
recognize  and  their  ability  to  understand  the  spiritual  life  of 
foreigners.  We  have  often  and  justly  boasted  that  no  nation 
has  equalled  us  in  assimilating  the  literature  and  poetry  of 
other  nations,  and  that  none  therefore  has  participated  in 
the  history  of  the  past  centuries  in  so  universal  a  spirit  as 
we.  Freedom  from  selfish,  arrogant,  vain,  and  narrow-minded 
self-conceit,  which  the  flatterers  of  popular  passion  call  pa- 
triotism, has  enabled  the  German  people  to  do  this.  Have 
we  still  the  right  to  boast  of  such  freedom  ?  One  thing  we 
may  say :  Thus  far  the  German  people,  or  at  least  their 
political  leaders,  have  borne  the  honors  of  their  new  position 
of  power  among  the  European  nations  with  great  and  unusual 
modesty.  But  perhaps  there  is  ground  for  adding:  The 
German  nation  has  reason  to  be  on  its  guard,  that  it  may 
not  forfeit  this  mental  freedom. 

The  question  concerning  the  function  of  education  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  school,  in  arousing  patriotism,  has  been  much 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


661 


discussed.  The  main  thing,  in  my  opinion,  is  to  guard  love 
of  country  against  degenerating  into  a  false  patriotism.  Love 
and  affection  for  one's  own  people  and  its  great  leaders  in  war 
and  peace  is  a  natural  feeling,  which  arises  spontaneously  in 
the  healthy  mind  reared  under  healthy  conditions.  Why 
should  not  a  person  borne  and  reared  by  a  German  mother, 
taught  by  German  teachers,  nurtured  by  German  poets,  be 
German  in  his  feelings  and  thoughts  ?  And  why  should  he 
not  lovingly  and  faithfully  cling  to  his  people?  And  why 
should  he  not  be  proud  of  its  virtues  and  achievements? 
But  respect  for  and  justice  to  the  foreign  do  not  arise  of  their 
own  accord.  On  the  contrary,  contempt  and  hatred  are  the 
natural  feelings  here.  To  suffer  and  understand  the  foreign 
is  culture.  It  is  a  beautiful  mission  for  our  higher  schools  to 
offer  such  culture.  The  masses  of  the  people  hardly  see  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  their  own  nation ;  in  war  only  do  they  come 
into  closer  contact  with  the  foreign.  The  gymnasium  in  its 
old  and  in  its  new  form  makes  the  acquisition  of  foreign  lan- 
guages the  chief  factor  in  its  instruction.  This  is  to  enable  the 
future  governors  and  leaders  of  the  people  to  understand  and 
to  preserve  the  historical  connections  of  their  own  race.  Such 
instruction  assumes  that  the  spiritual  life  of  our  people  is  not 
isolated  and  cannot  thrive  in  isolation,  —  that  our  people  is  a 
member  of  the  European  family  of  nations,  which  contains 
other  members  of  equal  worth,  by  which  its  own  life  is  sup- 
plemented and  enriched.  The  ultimate  goal  of  a  humanistic 
education  would  be  to  enable  the  individual  to  participate 
more  freely  in  the  spiritual  life  of  his  own  people,  by  teaching 
him  to  understand  human  life  in  its  historical  unity.  That 
would  be  humanistic  education  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
term ;  in  it  the  love  of  country  and  appreciation  of  humanity 

would  be  fused. 

If  the  propagation  of  such  humanistic  culture  were  to 
weaken  the  feelings  of  enmity  pervading  the  leading  classes 
among  the  European  nations,  if  it  would  in  a  measure  prepare 


662 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


the  way  for  the  "  eternal  peace  "  which  the  eighteenth  century 
foretold,  and  which  seems  to  be  so  infinitely  remote  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  would  be  no  small  gain.  The  European 
nations  will  have  to  accustom  themselves  to  the  thought  that, 
inasmuch  as  providence  has  decreed  that  they  must  live  to- 
gether, it  will  be  best  for  them  to  settle  their  differences 
otherwise  than  by  war.  The  spirit  of  brotherly  love  already 
prevails  among  them  to  such  an  extent  that  none  of  the  great 
civilized  nations  would  be  willing  to  see  any  of  the  others 
annihilated,  or  to  bring  about  such  a  result  itself.  Wars  of 
extermination  are  no  longer  carried  on  among  them  ;  quarrels 
are  settled  by  forcible  means  at  present,  merely  because  a 
new  and  different  method  has  not  yet  been  discovered. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  future  will  bring  back  enough  of 
the  humane  cosmopolitanism  of  earlier  times  to  restrict  and 
supplement  patriotism.     It   is  also  to  be  hoped  that  it  will 
give  back  to  us  some  of  our  old  love  of  home.     This,  too,  has 
been  somewhat  stifled  by  the  present  evolution  of  state  and 
national  patriotism.     "  Local  patriotism,"  like  cosmopolitan^ 
ism,  has  for  a  long  time  been  an  object  of   contempt  and 
abuse.     We  can  understand  why  this  is  so.     Germany  was 
formerly  split  up  into  a  lot  of  little  states,  until  the  establish- 
ment of  a  German  united  state  became  a  necessity  in  order  to 
enable  the  German  people  to  act  as  a  political  subject  among 
other  nations,  after  having  for  centuries  been  nothing  but  a 
political  object.     But  now  that  our  legitimate  and  passionate 
yearning  for  political  unity  has  been  satisfied,  let  us  hope  that 
our  people's  deeply  rooted  love  of  home  will  again  assert  itself. 
It  is  evidently  not  desirable  that  we  interest  ourselves  and 
participate  solely  in  the  public  affairs  of  the  Empire,  or,  what 
is  worse,  that  we  waste  our  efforts  in  political  discussions  and 
patriotic  manifestations.    The  sphere  of  political  life,  in  which 
the  individual  can  find  regular  and  fruitful  employment,  is 
for  most  persons  circumscribed  by  the  communities  in  which 
they  live.    The  community  is  the  proper  place  for  the  most 


LOVE  OF  NEIGHBOR 


663 


essential  functions  of  collective  life ;  the  school,  the  church, 
charitable  institutions,  public  enterprises  of  all  kinds,  offer 
the  public-spirited  man  ample  opportunity  for  exercising  his 
capacities.  Here  even  the  plain  man  of  the  people  can  labor 
freely  and  fruitfully  for  the  public  weal,  whereas  in  the  natu- 
ral course  of  events  he  can  hardly  do  anything  for  the  state 
at  large  except  what  he  is  commanded  to  do. 


CHAPTER  XI 

VERACITY  I 

1.  Veracity  may  be  regarded  as  a  form  of  benevolence ; 
it    is    benevolence    manifested    in    the    communication    of 

thoughts. 

We  may,  as  in  the  case  of  benevolence,  distinguish  two 
phases  of  veracity :  a  negative  side  and  a  positive  side.  The 
former,  corresponding  to  justice,  is  expressed  by  the  formula 
of  duty :  Thou  shalt  not  lie  ;  the  latter,  corresponding  to  love 
of  neighbor,  is  expressed  by  the  formula  of  duty  :  Serve  thy 
neighbor  with  the  truth. 

Let  us  first  discuss  the  negative  side. 
To  lie,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  define  it,  means  willingly 
and  wittingly  to  tell  an  untruth  in  order  to  deceive  others. 
Perhaps  it  will  not  be  unnecessary  to  make  the  definition  a 
little  narrower  by  taking  account  of  the  fact  that  falsehood 
sometimes  shelters  itself  behind  formal  excuses.     In  the  first 
place,  of  course,  words,  be  they  spoken  or  written,  are  not 
essential  to  falsehood.     We   can  lie  without  words,  by  acts 
and  gestures,  or  even  by  keeping  silent.     An  absent  one  is 
slandered  in  your  presence ;  you  know  that  what  is  said  is  not 
true,  but  you  have  not  the  courage  to  contradict  it ;  it  might 
cause  you  to  be  disliked  or  to  be  evilly  spoken  of,  so  you  are 

1  [Sidgwick,  Bk.  III.,  ch.  VII. ;  Stephen,  ch.V.  (IV.);  Jhering,  II.,  pp.  578 
ff  •  Porter,  Part  II.,  ch.  X.;  Hoffding,  XII.  b ;  Spencer,  Inductions,  ch.  IX.;  Smyth, 
Part  II.,  ch.  III.;  Dorner,  387-393  ;  Runze,  §§  69  ff .  -  Kant.  Uber  ein  vermemt. 
hches  Recht  aus  Menschenliebe  zu  lUgen,  1797;  Metaphysik  der  Sitten  (Harten- 
Btein)  VII.,  234-241  ;  Nietzsche,  Jenseits  von  Gut  und  BOse ;  Nordau,  Conven- 
tional Lies;  J.  Uorley,    On  Compromise.  — Tr] 


VERACITY 


665 


silent,  or  smile  knowingly.  That  is  lying.  Or  you  wish  an 
evil  report  concerning  a  third  party  to  be  circulated,  but  you 
are  not  willing  to  shoulder  the  responsibility,  and  so  you 
begin :  "  Have  you  heard  what  is  being  said  of  So-and-so  ? " 
The  newspapers,  as  well  as  gossiping  women,  are  in  the  habit 
of  lying  in  this  way :  " It  is  said  .  .  . ; "  "In  circles  which 
are  usually  well  informed  it  is  rumored.  .  .  ."  To  be  sure ; 
how  many  things  are  there  not  rumored  ? 

Equivocation  is  another  favorite  trick  of  the  liar.  L. 
Schmidt  ^  gives  a  few  examples  from  Greek  life.  The 
Locrians  made  a  compact  with  the  Siculians,  and  swore  that 
they  would  keep  it  so  long  as  they  trod  the  same  earth  and 
carried  their  heads  upon  their  shoulders.  Previously,  how- 
ever, they  had  put  earth  into  their  shoes,  and  had  placed 
garlic  heads  upon  their  shoulders  under  their  garments. 

Another  favorite  method  of  procedure,  developed  to  an  art 
by  politicians  and  historians,  is  to  let  the  facts  themselves 
lie.  In  discussing  one  side  of  a  question,  an  historian 
chooses  the  most  venomous  speeches  and  deeds  of  its  ex- 
treme supporters,  and  the  criticisms  and  self-reproaches  of 
the  moderate  wing ;  in  presenting  the  other  side  he  selects 
the  most  satisfactory  tenets,  the  most  commendable  or 
tolerable  acts  of  its  friends.  Thus  by  skilfully  selecting 
and  arranging  we  can  make  anything  out  of  everything. 
This,  too,  is  the  method  of  the  reviewer  who  does  not  like  a 
book ;  he  tears  out  a  handful  of  phrases  or  sentences,  sur- 
rounds them  abundantly  with  quotation  marks,  occasionally 
inserts  a  word  or  two,  and  places  the  stuffed  monster  before 
the  eyes  of  the  reader,  thereby  arousing  his  righteous  in- 
dignation. There  is  no  absurdity  that  cannot  be  drawn  from 
a  book  in  this  way.  A  particularly  favorite  trick  of  recent 
years  is  to  lie  by  arranging  the  figures.  Figures  never  lie,  it 
is  said.  This  is  not  true  ;  they  will  prove  whatever  is  expected 
of  them.     A  series  of  figures  is  given  :  "  Since  the  year  1872, 

1  Ethik  der  Griechen,  II.,  5. 


666 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


when  such  and  such  an  official  took  charge  of  the  school 
system,  the  number  of  youthful  criminals  has  increased  in  the 

following  progression .     These  figures  are  suggestive ! " 

Of  course,  says  the  harmless  reader  to  himself,  who  is  not 
trained  in  the  art  of  rhetoric,  and  for  him  alone  leading 
articles  are  written,  this  is  the  result   of  such  a  mode   of 

government. 

All  these  things  then  come  under  the  head  of  falsehood  :  To 
lie  means  to  influence  others  to  accept  views  which  you  do 
not  regard  as  true  yourself,  by  means  of  speech  or  silence, 
by   simulation   or  dissimulation,   and   by  the   selection  and 

arrangement  of  facts. 

2.  Why  is  lying  wrong  ?  Intuitional  ethics  answers  with 
common  sense :  Because  it  is  inherently  wrong  and  disgrace- 
ful. Kant  reckons  veracity  among  the  duties  to  self ;  he 
regards  falsehood  as  the  abandonment  of  one's  dignity  as 
a  man,  and  places  it  on  a  level  with  suicide :  as  the  latter 
destroys  the  physical  life,  so  the  former  destroys  moral  life. 

This  view  is  well  fitted  for  the  practical-rhetorical  treat- 
ment of  the  subject.  Indeed,  Kant  is  often  an  admirable 
moral  preacher.  But  it  is  the  business  of  moral  philosophy 
to  discover  the  objective  ground  of  morality,  and  this  we 
shall  again  have  to  seek  in  the  effects  which  falsehood  natur- 
ally tends  to  have  upon  the  conduct  of  human  life.  They  are 
not  hard  to  find.  Falsehood  directly  injures  the  deceived 
party  in  so  far  as  false  ideas  lead  to  false  acts.  As  a  rule, 
this  is  the  purpose  of  the  lie :  the  deceiver,  the  flatterer,  the 
slanderer,  wishes  to  gain  some  advantage  over  another  by 
deception.  Thus  falsehood  is  a  means  of  injustice,  and  there- 
fore shares  in  the  judgment  pronounced  upon  the  latter. 
But  falsehood  has  a  specific  effect  besides.  So  far  as  it  can, 
it  destroys  faith  and  confidence  among  men,  and  consequently 
undermines  human  social  Zife,  the  foundation  of  all  real  human, 
of  all  mental-historical  life.  And  this  explains  its  particular 
reprehensibleness.     We  may  illustrate  the  influence  of  false- 


VERACITY 


667 


hood  by  counterfeiting.  The  counterfeiter  damages  not  only 
the  individual  upon  whom  he  palms  off  the  spurious  coin  and 
who  cannot  pass  it;  he  also  injures  society,  by  destroying 
public  confidence  in  all  money  :  the  existence  of  spurious  coin 
brings  the  good  money  into  disrepute.  Should  spurious  coins 
become  so  numerous  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  test  every 
piece  before  accepting  it,  this  would  be  equivalent  to  the 
abolition  of  money  as  such,  for  its  purpose  is  to  relieve  tlie 
individual  of  the  necessity  of  testing  its  value.  Lying  has  the 
same  effect.  It  falsifies  the  intellectual  medium  of  exchange, 
so  to  speak.  Lies  invalidate  the  truth,  and  the  outcome  is 
universal  distrust  and  isolation.  The  parties  immediately 
concerned  are  directly  affected.  The  deceived  person  first 
becomes  distrustful  of  the  liar,  and,  in  case  he  has  been 
deceived  by  many,  of  all  human  beings  in  general,  and  sep- 
arates himself  from  them.  The  liar  fares  similarly.  He  is 
isolated  from  his  surroundings,  first,  owing  to  the  distrust  of 
those  whom  he  deceives,  which  hardly  ever  fails  to  appear ; 
for  one  lie  may  pass  undiscovered,  but  habitual  falsehood  can- 
not remain  concealed,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  lies 
in  the  very  nature  of  untruths  to  contradict  each  other, 
whereas  consistency  is  peculiar  to  truth.  When  the  liar 
loses  the  confidence  of  others,  he  also  loses  confidence  in 
them :  it  is  psychologically  necessary  for  the  man  who  lies 
to  expect  others  to  do  the  same.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
this  dual  distrust  is  not  a  favorable  condition  of  life :  like  a 
poisoned  stratum  of  air  it  envelops  a  life  and  excludes  it  from 
fellowship  with  human  beings ;  the  honest  and  sincere  men, 
especially,  are  repelled,  for  they  cannot  breathe  an  atmosphere 
of  falsehood  and  distrust. 

The  corroding  and  poisonous  character  of  falsehood  becomes 
most  apparent  when  it  invades  permanent  social  relations, 
family-life,  friendship,  education.  A  pupil  lies  to  his  teacher. 
Some  misdemeanor  has  been  committed  in  the  class,  the 
guilty  party  lies  out  of  it,  as  the  saying  is.    The  result  is 


668  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

mutual  distrust.     The   teacher  begins  to  hold  Wmsdf Joof 
from  his  pupils,  the  frank  relations  between  him  and  them  are 
atTn  enS  he  begins  to  observe  them  stealthily,  to  spy  upon 
hem     Se  pupils  notice  it ;  they  begin  to  make  concealmen^; 
fo  "dence  and  openness,  the  conditions  of  a  happy  relat  on 
be  ween  teacher  and  student,  are  gone     When  occ^-- 
this  kind  become  frequent,  something  of  the  P^f^^^;;; 
pervades  the  school,  which  «f  ^  ;^;^  ^f^  J  /^^^  [^I; 
Honce  nothino;  is  more  important  than  to  preserve  iue    p 
ff  ;i  and  confidence  within  its  walls.    This  however,  can 
be  kept  alive  only  where  the  spirit  of  freedom  dwells. 

Hence  it  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  fal-»;o°^.tha    t 
poisons  speech,  undermines  confidence,  destroys  collec  -  1.^^ 
and  so  attacks  the  very  fibres  of  human  existence.    I  cannot 
deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  quoting  a  beautiful  V^^^J^ 
Luther's  commentary  on  the  Psalms  which  I  find  in  Herder  s 
zZsfor  the  Promotion  of  mmanUy.  "It  seems  to  me 
fhtrire  is  no  more  pernicious  vice  on  earth  than  falsehood 
and  faithlessness,   which  divide  all  human  societies.     For 
lehood  and  faithlessness  first  divide  hearts;  when  hea  te 
are  divided,  hands  also  separate,  and  when  hands  separate, 
are  aivm    ,  „^„™piiah  ?    We  Germans  still  have  a 

what  can  we  do  or  accompnsn  .     "c  .  4.r,„  „ij 

spark -may  God  keep  it  alive  and  strengthen  it  -  of  the  old 
virtue:  we  are  still  a  little  ashamed  of  ourselves  and  do  not 
like  to  be  called  liars;  we  do  not  laugh  abou  it  as  do  the 
French  and  the  Greeks,  or  make  a  jest  of  it.  And  although 
French  and  Greek  vices  are  making  ^''^^^/'^.^  "^l 
nevertheless  we  have  retained  so  much  of  the  old  spirit  that 
no  one  can  utter  or  hear  a  more  severe  and  abusive  epithet 

than  that  of  liar." 

Another  factor  helps  to  make  the  lie  still  more  reprehen- 

sible;  it  is  a  sign  of  cowardice.     It  steals  upon  its  victim, 

nsteld  of  vanquishing  him  in  open  battle.     A  brave  man 

will  not  lie.     The  accusation  of  falsehood  always  carries 

with  it  the  charge  of  cowardice,  hence   it  wounds  a  man 


VERACITY 


669 


more  deeply  than  almost  any  other  charge.  You  lie,  means 
at  the  same  time :  You  are  a  cowardly  knave. 

3.  Everything  that  makes  the  lie  despicable  and  base  is 
included  in  calumny.  We  might  rhetorically  define  it  as  the 
murderous  attack  of  the  assassin  upon  the  ideal  self  of  an- 
other. In  Othello,  Shakespeare  portrays  the  natural  history 
of  calumny  with  awful  faithfulness  and  cruelty.  lago  stran- 
gles the  innocent  wife  with  the  hands  of  her  husband.  Had 
lago  killed  Desdemona  with  his  own  hand  and  robbed  her  as 
a  pirate,  he  would  have  been  an  honest  man  beside  the  real 
lago.  The  fact  that  he  cannot  even  be  called  to  account  be- 
fore a  human  judge  makes  the  matter  all  the  worse  — for 
what  did  he  do  but  act  in  good  faith  in  calling  Othello's 
attention  to  the  dangers  threatening  his  honor;  well  who 
never  made  a  mistake  ? 

Moreover,  we  must  not  forget  that  two  persons  are  always 
necessary  to  make  a  slander  possible.  Just  as  the  thief  needs 
the  receiver  of  stolen  goods,  the  calumniator  needs  a  person 
to  accept  his  words  and  to  put  them  in  circulation.  And 
just  as  stealing  would  be  impossible  on  the  large  scale  with- 
out receivers  of  stolen  goods,  the  business  of  calumny  would 
be  impossible  if  there  were  not  so  many  to  delight  in  it  and 
encourage  it.  In  a  letter  written  during  the  period  of  his 
banishment  (1811)  Freiherr  von  Stein  bitterly  reproaches 
this  base  tendency  of  human  nature.  "  When  once  a  man  is 
marked  as  the  victim  of  slander,  his  past  life,  his  established 
character,  the  probability  of  the  truth  of  the  accusation,  are 
not  taken  into  account;  the  question  simply  is  whether 
the  charge  will  answer  the  intended  purpose.  In  a  short 
time  the  calumny  is  circulated  everywhere;  it  triumphs, 
the  enemies  of  the  victim  are  active,  the  great  multitude 
maliciously  credulous,  his  friends  pretending  to  be  impartial 
are  base ;  they  are  silent,  where  they  ought  to  take  a  firm 
stand.  Finally  one  after  the  other  goes  over  to  the  opposite 
party  from  pure  love   of  virtue,  from  a  sense  of  duty,  and 


670 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


delicacy  of  feeling.  All  passions  which  he  has  insulted,  all 
presumptuousness  which  he  has  wounded,  now  revive;  all 
wish  to  celebrate  the  day  of  revenge  and  to  feast  on  the  fat 
of  the  victim."^ 

Another  modified  form  of  the  lie  is  jlattery.  It  is  so  re- 
pulsive because  it  creeps  in  under  the  guise  of  friendship  to 
defraud  its  victim.  However,  here  again  two  people  are 
necessary :  one  to  do  the  flattering  and  one  who  allows  him- 
self to  be  flattered.  As  a  plaster  draws  blisters,  so  self- 
conceit  provokes  flattery.  Hypocrisy  is  a  form  of  flattery. 
Religious  hypocrisy  used  to  be  common :  we  may  define  it  cs 
an  attempt  by  the  exact  fulfilment  of  the  ceremonies  of  the 
church  to  insinuate  oneself  into  the  good  graces  of  God  and 
to  draw  His  attention  from  less  agreeable  phases  of  one's  life. 
Religious  hypocrisy  has  well-nigh  died  out  in  our  world,  at 
least  among  the  Protestants ;  nowadays  it  appears  solely  as  a 
part  of  political  hypocrisy,  which  tries  to  insinuate  itself 
into  the  graces  of  earthly  rulers.  With  shrewd  zeal  the 
hypocrite  enters  into  the  views,  inclinations,  and  tastes  of 
great  or  little  lords,  particularly  into  their  ecclesiastical  and 
religious  opinions,  and  seeks  and  gains  favor  thereby. 
Nothing  flatters  a  human  being  more  than  to  be  an  authority ; 
authority,  however,  must  be  acknowledged  by  imitation. 

The  effect  of  hypocrisy  is  the  same  as  that  of  all  lying:  as 
forgery  makes  us  suspect  the  genuine,  hypocrisy  brings  re- 
ligion into  hatred  and  contempt.  Hence  all  truly  religious 
natures  hate  hypocrisy,  and  all  sincere  persons  hate  assumed 
"  orthodoxy  "  like  death. 

Falsehood  raised  to  the  highest  power  is  perjury.  It  is  the 
lie  accompanied  by  the  formal  and  solemn  assurance  that  it 
is  the  truth.  Perjury  has  everywhere  and  always  been  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  greatest  crimes,  as  a  sign  of  extreme 
viciousness  and  baseness.  We  can  defend  ourselves  againpt 
violence  by  violence,  strategy  we  meet  with  strategy :  these 

1  Pertz,  Stein's  Leben,  I.,  449. 


VERACITY 


671 


are  the  means  of  war,  which  may  be  followed  by  an  honor- 
able peace  after  the  matter  has  been  fought  out.  But  perjury 
cuts  off  all  possibility  of  a  return  of  friendship.  There  is 
no  defence,  no  weapon  against  perjury ;  helplessly  and  with 
a  feeling  of  horror  man  appeals  to  the  gods,  when  he  has  been 
deceived  by  perjury,  to  punish  such  an  enormous  crime.  L. 
Schmidt  ^  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Iliad,  con- 
trary to  its  leading  ideas,  does  not  regard  death  as  the  final 
punishment  of  perjury ;  fidelity  to  oaths  is  universally  looked 
upon  by  the  Greeks  as  the  most  essential  and,  in  a  measure, 
most  elementary  part  of  justice,  perjury  as  the  most  heinous 
crime. 

The  necessity  of  absolutely  proving  evidence  before  court 
has  led  to  the  preservation  of  the  oath  in  our  judicial  prac- 
tice. The  legal  prosecution  of  organized  bands  of  perjurers 
every  now  and  then  shows  beyond  a  doubt  that  with  the 
weakening  of  the  transcendent  sanction  the  oath  has  lost 
some  of  its  efficacy  and  has  become  a  dreadfully  dangerous 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  men.  This  state  of 
affairs  evidently  suggests  the  advisability  of  abolishing  the 
oath  from  legal  practice,  a  useless  survival.  At  all  events, 
it  demands  that  the  greatest  care  be  taken  in  employing  it. 
We  must  particularly  restrict  the  right  of  doubtful  char- 
acters to  make  oath  by  imposing  severe  punishments  for  its 
violation.  And  can  we  justify  the  practice  of  forcing  the 
oath  ?  2 

1  Ethik  der  Griechen,  II.,  3  ff. 

2  Au  able  judge,  von  Valentini,  Das  Verbreckertum  in  Preussen,  p.  112,  ex- 
presses the  opinion  that  the  administration  of  the  oath  by  the  courts,  its  employ- 
ment as  a  "  technical  requisite,"  greatly  encourages  perjury.  Indeed,  how,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  forty  to  fifty  oaths  are  administered  at  a  single  session  of  a 
sheriff's  court,  mostly  in  farcical  and  trivial  cases,  can  the  oath  preserve  its  es- 
pecially sacred  character  ?  The  ceremony  with  which  the  thing  is  surrounded 
almost  makes  matters  worse.  Besides  this,  the  judges  are  by  no  means  obliged 
to  regard  the  sworn  testimony  as  worthy  of  belief,  and  do  not  regard  it  as  such  : 
it  really  makes  an  extremely  painful  impression  upon  one,  when  the  judge,  after 
having  just  sworn  a  witness,  straightway  admonishes  him,  not  always  in  the 
gentlest  manner,  to  keep  to  the  truth.     We  are  similarly  impressed  by  the  attitude 


672 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND   DUTIES 


iffi; 


4.  The  Lie  of  Necessity.  A  problem  that  has  given  the 
moralists  the  greatest  trouble  is  the  lie  of  necessity.  Is 
deception  under  all  circumstances  morally  wrong,  or  can 
conditions  arise  under  which  it  is  permissible  or  even 
morally  necessary? 

In  our  actual  judgments  and  actions  we  experience  no  diffi- 
culty in  answering  this  question;  everybody  acknowledges 
the  possibility  of  the  "necessary  lie."  There  is  not  a  phy- 
sician in  the  whole  world  who  does  not  at  times  give  decep- 
tive answers  to  the  questions  of  his  patients,  who  does  not 
arouse  hopes  which  he  does  not  share.  He  does  not  reproach 
himself  for  doing  so,  neither  do  others  blame  him.  Indeed, 
everybody  does  the  same  thing  under  similar  circumstances. 
Suppose  that,  without  knowing  it,  a  man  should  be  in  an 
extremely  dangerous  position  and  that  his  rescue  depended 
upon  his  being  deceived  for  a  minute,  would  any  one  in  the 
slightest  hesitate  to  encourage  him  in  his  delusion  ?  The 
newspapers  recently  reported  a  case  analogous  to  this.  Fire 
broke  out  during  a  performance  in  a  theatre  at  Zurich. 
When  the  stage  manager  discovered  it,  he  appeared  before 

of  the  ta'x-officials  with  respect  to  the  "  self-asaessment " :  after  the  person  ha^ 
made  his  returns,  certifying  that  they  are  true,  "  according  to  his  best  knowl- 
edge and  belief,"  he  is  informed  that  the  authorities  are  inclined  not  to  believe  his 
statements,  but  merely  regard  them  as  valuable  material  for  further  investigations. 
If  this  is  not  an  invitation  to  withhold  returns,  not  to  say  to  ignore  the  "  to  the 
best  knowledge  and  belief "  clause  in  the  assessment-blank,  I  know  nothing  of 
psvcholo-v.  Is  not  what  the  authorities  presuppose  permissible  ? —Many  of 
the  so-called  promissory  oaths  also  tend  to  make  persons  careless  in  swearing 
oaths.  Think  of  the  academic  oaths.  The  medical  doctor's  oath,  which  is  cus- 
tomarv  in  Berlin,  begins:  «  I,  John  Doe,  swear  that  I  will  not  practise  medicine 
for  the  sake  of  personal  gain,  but  for  the  glory  of  God,  for  the  welfare  of  man, 
and  for  the  promotion  of  scientific  knowledge,"  etc.  But  this  is  evidently  a 
survival  protected  by  the  Latin  language  :  the  thing  would  be  impossible  in  Ger- 
man  -Ts  it  not  possible  that  the  prohibition  against  swearing  in  tlie  Gospel  is 
chieflv  aimed  at  promissory  oaths  ?  The  reasons  given  seem  to  indicate  it :  You 
are  not  master  of  things,  and  of  the  future,  you  cannot  make  one  hair  white  or 
black  ;  and  vet  you  will  sell  your  soul  by  an  oath  and  bind  yourself  to  do  certam 
things.  With  what  ease  the  church  evades  this  explicit  prohibition  against 
swearing,  and  how  tenaciously  she  adheres  to  the  law  of  the  Sabbath,  in  spite  of 
its  abolition ! 


VERACITY 


673 


the  scenes  and  announced  that,  owing  to  the  sudden  illness 
of  an  actor,  the  performance  would  have  to  be  suspended. 
The  theatre  was  emptied  without  any  trouble,  and  then 
burned  to  the  ground.  Will  any  one  dare  to  condemn  this 
happy  idea  as  a  lie  ?  And  it  is  not  even  necessary  that  the 
deception  be  in  the  interest  of  the  person  deceived.  It  may 
also  be  practised  in  one's  own  interest,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  and  meet  with  universal  approval.  An  old  woman 
is  at  home  alone;  a  couple  of  tramps  break  into  her  house; 
she  has  presence  of  mind  enough  to  call  out  the  name  of 
her  husband,  thereby  deceiving  the  burglars.  She  will  not 
herself  suffer  remorse  for  her  behavior,  nor  will  any  one 
else  reproach  her  for  it.  Nay,  even  the  tramps  themselves 
would  not  be  so  rigoristic  as  to  blame  her.  The  story  is  told 
that  Columbus  entered  a  smaller  number  of  miles  in  the 
log-book  during  his  first  voyage  of  discovery  than  he  actually 
traversed  each  day,  in  order  to  make  the  distance  from  home 
seem  shorter  to  his  timid  crew.  Will  any  one  condemn  the 
brave  sailor's  strategy  as  a  moral  fault  ? 

Only  among  moral  philosophers  do  we  still  find  persons 
who  regard  the  matter  as  serious.     Kant  declares:    False- 
hood, that  is,  intentional  untruthfulness,  is  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, '^  by  its  mere  form,  a  crime  of  man  against  his 
own  person,  and  a  baseness  which  must  make  a  man  despi- 
cable in  his  own  eyes."^     When  a  man  misdirects  a  mur- 
derer in  search  of  his  victim,   and  dexterously  turns  him 
into  the  hands  of  the  police,  we  cannot  excuse  him:  he  has 
told  a  lie,  and  has  therefore  forfeited  his  dignity  as  a  man. 
And  Fichte  once  said,  with  his  usual  rhetorical  fanaticism, 
"I  would  not  break   my   word  even  to  save  humanity. "^ 
Let  us  apply  this  principle  in  practice.    Suppose  that  I  had 
promised  some  one  to  call   for  him   at  ^\\q   o'clock  for   a 
walk,  and  that  on  my  way  to  his  house  I  saw  a  child  fall 
into  the  river.     If  I  followed  Fichte,  I  should  say  to  myself: 

1  Tugendlehre,  §  9.  *  Life,  II.,  57. 

43 


674 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


"  If  you  pull  it  out,  you  will  have  to  go  home  and  change  your 
clothes,  which  will  make  it  impossible  for  you  to  keep  your 
engagement;   hence   you   must  hurry  on,  sorry  though  you 
may  be."     Or  would  it  be  right  for  me  to  assume  that  my 
friend  would  give  his  consent  in  such  a  case,  and,  acting  on 
this  belief,  to  break  my  engagement  ?     But  suppose  I  could 
not  assume  that  he  would  consent.     I  have  made  a  promise ; 
now  I  see  what  I  could  not  have  known  before,  or  what  is 
simply  the  result  of  new  conditions;  a  third  party,  or  I 
myself,  might  be  seriously  damaged  by  fulfilling  the  prom- 
ise,    I  beg  to  be  released  from  my  word,  I  am  willing  to 
pay  any  amount  of  indemnity;  in  vain.     May  I  break  my 
word?     Under  no  circumstances.     I  should    have   to   say, 
according  to  Fichte's  view:  Let  the  world  perish,  that  is 
not  my  concern;  but   it   is  my  concern  not  to  destroy  my 
moral  dignity  as  a  human  being  by  a  lie!  — Other  moralists 
are  somewhat  more  yielding,  or  have  not  the   courage  to 
draw  the  consequences    of    their  views.      Thus   Martensen 
holds   in  his    Theological  Ethics:^    Lies  of   necessity   are, 
under  certain  circumstances,  permitted   on   account  of  the 
weakness  of  human  nature ;  but  it  must  be  confessed  that 
"there  is  some  sin  in  every  such  falsehood;"  a  conclusion 
which  surely  is  not  in  accord  with  the  words  of  the  Gospel  • 
"Let  your  communication  be  yea,  yea,  nay,  nay." 

Practice  not  only  contradicts  the  theory  here,  but  is  even 
theoretically  correct  in  its  opposition  to  these  theorists.  It 
may  be  that  the  lie  of  necessity  does  not  fit  into  the  system  of 
a  moralist,  but  that  merely  proves  the  inability  of  his  system 
to  comprehend  moral  things.  A  teleological  ethics  finds  no 
difficulty  in  explaining  the  phenomenon  in  question. 

Intentional  deception  is  objectively  reprehensible,  as  was 
shown  above,  because  it  tends  to  destroy  confidence,  and  thus 
to  lead  to  the  disintegration  of  ih^  social  organism.  In 
cases  where  this  effect  cannot  possibly  occur,  owing  to  the 

1  II.,  264. 


VERACITY 


675 


very  nature  of  things,  it  is  not  reprehensible.  Let  us  take 
an  example.  No  relation  of  confidence  can  be  destroyed  by 
deceiving  a  burglar,  because  absolutely  none  exists,  neither 
a  special  relation,  nor  a  universally-human  one.  In  so  far 
and  so  long  as  such  lawbreakers  follow  their  calling,  they 
stand  outside  of  the  pale  of  confidence,  and  thereby  forfeit 
all  claims  to  the  truth,  nor  will  they  expect  to  receive  it. 

The  case  is  somewhat  similar  in  war.  No  soldier  has  ever 
scrupled  against  deceiving  the  enemy  as  to  his  own  plans, 
tactics,  or  numbers.  Strategy  is  one  of  the  arts  of  war ;  it 
would  be  absurd  to  show  your  hand  in  war.  It  is  said  that 
the  most  honest  man  cheats  in  a  horse-trade ;  it  is  one  of  the 
rules  of  the  game  to  keep  your  eyes  open.  The  etymological 
relation  between  the  words  tauschen  (to  exchange)  and 
tduschen  (to  deceive)  seems  to  indicate  that  these  rules  are 
also  applied  to  other  branches  of  commerce.  Well,  decep- 
tion is  likewise  one  of  the  rules  of  war :  everybody  practises 
it  and  expects  the  enemy  to  do  the  same.  The  rules,  how- 
ever, apply  only  to  the  game.  Whenever  in  war  an  individ- 
ual comes  in  contact  with  another  individual  not  as  a  foe 
but  as  a  human  being,  then  the  universal  rule  of  human  in- 
tercourse again  demands  its  rights.  The  same  is  true  when- 
ever the  game  of  war  is  temporarily  suspended  by  mutual 
agreement :  to  break  an  armistice,  to  ambush  the  bearer  of 
a  flag  of  truce,  is  disgraceful  and  dishonorable. 

The  case  is  peculiar  in  diplomacy/.  In  a  certain  sense 
the  rules  of  war  seem  to  hold  here :  Keep  your  eyes  open ! 
No  one  shows  his  hand,  and  everybody  will,  to  say  the  least, 
regard  it  as  legitimate  not  to  "disillusionize"  a  fellow- 
player  under  certain  circumstances,  nay,  perhaps  even  to 
encourage  him  a  little  in  his  false  belief.  This  is  apparently 
because  it  is  tacitly  assumed  in  international  intercourse 
that  every  state  will  be  solely  and  unconditionally  guided  in 
its  dealings  with  others  by  the  regard  for  its  own  vital  in- 
terests; that  it  will,  so  far  as  it  can  safely  do  so,  assert 


676 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


i.'fl 


these  even  at  the  expense  of  other  nations.     There  is  no  law 
governing  the  intercourse  of  states  which  can  secure  them 
against  encroachments ;  there  is  no  power  which  can  medi- 
ate between  them  or  call  the  breaker  of  the  peace  to  account. 
Hence  a  constant  potential  state  of  war  exists  between  states. 
The  rules  of  diplomatic  intercourse  show  that  in  so  far  as 
war,  in  which  force  and  strategy  are  absolutely  permitted, 
is    possible   at   any  moment,   the  parties  are    reticent  and 
distrustful  of  each  other;  they  conceal  their  measures  and 
agreements,  their  plans  and  intentions.     But  in  so  far  as 
the  real  object  of  diplomacy  is  to  maintain  peace,  to  settle 
by  negotiations  what  would  otherwise  have  to  be  settled  by 
the  arbitrament  of  war,  a  certain  measure  of  mutual  confi- 
dence is  required.     If  diplomats  needed  language  merely  to 
conceal    their  thoughts,    it  would  evidently   be  wiser  for 
nations  not  to  speak  to  each  other  at  all.  —  Besides,  there 
seems  to  be  the  same  tendency  here  as  in  commerce.     At- 
tempts are  being  made  in  the  latter  field  gradually  to  stamp 
out  fraud,  at  least  the  coarser  phases  of  it,  as  an  unsuitable 
form  of  intercourse.     So,  too,  in  the  diplomatic  intercourse 
of  nations :  the  closer  they  are  drawing  to  each  other,  the 
more  intimate  their  relations  are  becoming,  the  more  the 
conviction  seems  to  be  growing  that  the  straight  course  is 
better  than  the  crooked  course  in  the  long  run.     And  per- 
haps we  may  see  in  this  an  evidence  that  the  European 
nations   are  approaching  a  condition   of  permanent  peace, 
remote    though   it   may  seem   at  present.      For    evidently 
the   probability   of   war  and  the   measure   of    openness   in 
diplomatic  intercourse   are  in  inverse  proportion  to  each 

other. 

Hence,  the  fewer  the  relations  of  trust  which  can  be  dis- 
turbed, the  more  of  its  dangerous  and  objectionable  character 
intentional  deception  loses,  and  the  more  openly  it  is  actually 
practised,  until  it  ultimately  appears  as  an  altogether  legiti- 
mate means  of  warfare  in  the  actual  state  of  war.     Where 


VERACITY 


677 


all  ties  are  broken,  where  even  the  killing  of  others  is  de- 
sired, it  can  do  no  more  harm ;  things  are  so  bad  that  decep- 
tion will  not  make  them  worse. 

Another  case  which  may  make  intentional  deception  per- 
missible or  necessary  is  the  inability  of  the  other  party  to 
understand  or  to  bear  the  truth.  It  may,  for  example,  under 
circumstances,  have  a  quieting  effect  upon  insane  persons  to 
enter  into  their  delusions.  It  is  also  necessary  to  accom- 
modate oneself  to  the  weakminded.  This  is  true  of  old 
people  who  have  grown  weak-minded;  they  have  lost  the 
faculty  of  seeing  and  judging  things  in  their  true  relations, 
but  not  the  faculty  of  becoming  excited  by  occasionally  mis- 
interpreting them.  We  are  compelled,  for  example,  to  make 
certain  arrangements,  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  our  old 
parents.  Is  it  right  to  conceal  our  plans,  or  to  deny  them  ? 
It  is  a  hard  thing  to  do ;  it  seems  like  a  breach  of  old  confi- 
dential relations.  And  yet  every  one  will  at  times  decide 
to  pursue  such  a  course,  and  justly  so,  for  what  good  would 
it  do  to  tell  them  ?  We  could  not  make  them  see  the  neces- 
sity of  our  action ;  the  information  would  therefore  simply 
grieve  them,  while  the  deception,  if  not  detected,  would  be 
harmless.  The  case  is  different  in  our  intercourse  with 
children ;  and  here  we  are  often  too  ready  to  have  recourse  to 
the  most  convenient  form  of  deception  that  happens  to  pres- 
ent itself.  The  deception  persists  in  memory;  when  the 
intelligence  develops  and  recognizes  it  as  such,  it  may  after- 
wards seriously  undermine  the  child's  faith.  Besides,  an- 
other means  of  escape  is  always  at  hand ;  we  can  refuse  to 
answer  the  child's  questions  by  saying,  "You  do  not  under- 
stand these  things  yet,"  or,  " They  do  not  concern  you."  It 
would,  however,  be  wholly  impossible  to  treat  old  people  in 
this  way,  even  if  it  were  proper.  Here,  then,  we  must 
make  use  of  language,  as  the  physician  occasionally  pre- 
scribes a  pretended  remedy,  simply  in  order  to  quiet  the 
patient. 


;i 


678 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


But,  some  one  might  ask  in  troubled  tones,  Where,  then, 
shall  we  draw  the  line  ?  The  transition  to  childish  old  age 
is  a  gradual  one.  Where  may  one  begin  to  deceive  ?  And 
if  I  may  deceive  a  weak-minded  person,  then  why  not  a  stupid 
blockhead?  And  where  shall  this  end?  And  who  is  to 
decide  how  to  classify  the  individuals  in  question  ?  Only 
one  answer  can  be  made  to  such  questions.  Such  fixed 
boundaries  do  not  exist  in  morals.  The  law  draws  hard  and 
fast,  and  therefore  arbitrary,  lines,  while  morality  has  every- 
where to  do  with  gradual  transitions.  The  particular  case 
must  necessarily  be  decided  by  the  individual's  own  insight 
and  conscience,  and  with  a  view  to  the  concrete  conditions. 
Morality  cannot  give  him  a  scheme  which  shall  enable  him 
to  settle  the  matter  with  mechanical  certainty.  It  can 
merely  indicate  the  general  points  of  view  from  which  the 
decision  is  to  be  rendered. 

The  case  is  not  essentially  different  for  the  physician  in 
his  intercourse  with  patients.  Here,  too,  we  have  a  rela- 
tion of  trust,  and  deception  is  not  without  its  dangers. 
Perhaps  we  are  all  a  little  incredulous  in  reference  to  what 
the  physician  says,  both  when  he  tries  to  quiet  us  and 
when  he  warns  us.  He  does  it,  we  believe,  simply  for 
effect.  Nevertheless,  we  cannot  expect  absolute  openness 
from  the  physician  in  every  case.  If,  in  order  to  assist  his 
art,  he  skilfully  and  quietly  deceives  the  patient  and  his 
friends  as  to  the  magnitude  of  the  danger,  he  does  not  de- 
serve blame  but  praise.  It  is  a  part  of  his  art  to  keep  up 
courage  and  hope ;  to  that  end  he  also  makes  use  of  speech, 
even  at  the  risk  of  subsequently  disappointing  the  patient 
and  of  weakening  the  latter's  faith  in  his  word  as  well  as  in 
the  word  of  physicians  in  general.  It  was  shown  above  ^  that 
the  violation  of  formal  right  is  under  all  circumstances  an 
evil,  but  that  it  may  become  permissible  or  necessary  in 
order  to  ward  off  a  greater  evil  from  oneself  or  others.     The 

1  Pp.  630ff. 


w 


VERACITY 


679 


I 


same  is  true  here.  The  lie  of  necessity,  like  the  law  of 
necessity,  may  become  a  moral  duty,  —  a  duty  which  even 
the  most  truthful  man  cannot  always  evade,  however  wil- 
.  ling  he  may  be  to  forfeit  his  right  to  deceive.  Confidence 
in  human  speech  is  a  great  good,  but  it  is  not  the  only  good 
thing  in  the  world. 

Everybody  meets  with  similar  cases  in  life.  A  man  has 
had  some  trouble ;  he  has  been  undeservedly  abused ;  a  crisis 
threatens  to  overtake  his  business.  He  comes  home,  deter- 
mined not  to  say  anything  about  the  matter.  But  he  looks 
pale ;  his  family  ask  him,  what  has  happened  ?  Is  it  right 
to  say,  "  Nothing,  it  is  warm,  I  have  a  headache  ?  "  I  believe 
the  conditions  may  be  such  that  no  one  would  hesitate  to 
practise  deception  here.  The  man  in  our  example  does  not 
like  to  tell  the  truth,  he  does  not  wish  his  friends  at  home 
to  hear  anything  about  the  matter ;  why  should  they  worry 
over  it  ?  To  evade  their  questions  may  be  worse  than  to  tell 
the  truth.  —  Here,  too,  relations  of  confidence  exist,  and 
deception  is  not  without  danger.  In  case  they  should  hear 
of  his  troubles  from  others  who  will  not  spare  their  feelings, 
they  may  not  only  be  more  greatly  disturbed,  but  their  con- 
fidence may  receive  a  serious  shock.  And  yet  a  man 
may  make  up  his  mind  to  add  dissimulation  to  intentional 
deception. 

Or,  is  dissimulation  absolutely  wrong,  according  to  these 
"  rigorous  "  moralists  ?  That  it  belongs  to  the  category  of 
deception  cannot  be  denied.  When  a  man  with  his  heart 
full  of  care  and  bitterness  seems  cheerful  and  calm  in  the 
circle  of  his  family,  so  that  no  one  notices  it,  he  has  cer- 
tainly deceived  them  in  the  most  complete  manner  possible. 
Is  that  not  allowed  either  ?  Has  he  no  right  to  look  cheerful 
when  he  is  inwardly  sad,  or  calm  when  he  is  in  trouble  ?  Is 
this,  too,  an  abandonment  of  his  dignity  as  a  man  ?  These 
moral  philosophers  should  have  made  clear  to  themselves  the 
consequences  of  their  assertion.     Or  is  it  possible  only  to 


680 


DOCTRINE   OF  VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


deceive  by  means  of  the  tongue  and  not  with  the  eyes  and 
face  ?  Or  ought  we  always  to  show  everything  we  feel  ? 
Ought  I  then  to  tell  a  friend  who  has  an  unfortunate  leaning 
to  art,  when  he  presents  me  with  a  picture  as  a  birthday 
gift :  "  My  dear  friend,  your  intentions  are  undoubtedly  good, 
but  I  wish  you  would  spare  me  ?  "  Or  shall  I  declare,  when 
he  expects  me  to  say  something  about  the  present :  "  Unfortu- 
nately, I  cannot  tell  you  anything,  for  if  I  told  you  the  truth, 
you  would  be  angry,  but  if  I  did  n't  tell  the  truth,  this  would 
be  contrary  to  the  moral  law  ?  "  Of  course,  it  may  be  my  duty 
to  say  to  my  friend  frankly  and  distinctly,  in  case  his  hobby 
is  making  him  ridiculous,  or  is  causing  him  to  neglect  his 
duties :  "  Stop  it,  you  will  never  accomplish  anything,  and  you 
are  simply  hurting  yourself."  The  good-natured  praise  of 
questionable  achievements  may  grow  into  base  flattery.  But 
all  this  will  not  shake  any  one  but  an  extremist  in  the  belief 
that  it  may,  under  circumstances,  be  right  and  proper  to  tell 
a  man  what  will  give  him  harmless  pleasure,  even  though 
this  does  not  express  one's  real  opinion,  instead  of  telling 
him  things  which  it  will  neither  please  him  nor  benefit  him 

to  hear. 

To  the  same  category  belong  the  conventional  half-truths 
and  untruths  of  social  intercourse.  We  welcome  a  visitor 
who  comes  at  an  inopportune  time;  at  the  end  of  a  letter 
we  assure  a  man  whom  we  do  not  know,  or  whom  we  look 
upon  as  a  thorough  villain,  of  our  high  esteem.  The  neces- 
sity and  justification  for  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  smooth 
and  peaceful  intercourse  is  not  possible  among  men  as  they 
are  constituted,  without  the  exercise  of  some  constraint. 
The  customary  politeness  is  the  oil  which  prevents,  so  far  as 
possible,  the  creaking  and  pulling  of  the  machine.  The 
angels  in  heaven  do  not  need  it.  Where  there  are  no  inner 
discords  and  outer  obstacles,  perfect  openness  is  possible; 
human  beings  as  they  are  constituted  cannot  endure  it.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  Goethe  delicately  and  truthfully  says : 


VERACITY  681 

Fragst  du  nach  der  Kunst  zu  leben  ? 
Lern*  mit  Narr  und  Bosem  leben. 
Mit  den  Weisen,  mit  den  Guten, 
Wird  es  sich  von  selbst  ergeben.* 

Of  course,  where  is  the  boundary  between  necessary  polite- 
ness and  repulsive  flattery  and  falsehood?  No  system  of 
morals  can  draw  the  line:  moral  tact  alone  must  decide. 
And  the  thing  is  not  without  its  dangers.  A  person  who 
lives  much  in  society  easily  forms  the  habit  of  lying,  his 
conscience  gradually  becomes  seared,  it  becomes  a  second 
nature  and  finally  a  necessity  for  him  to  lie.  We  are  there- 
fore ready  to  suspect  a  man  who  exhibits  great  skill  in  the  art 
of  polite  speech.  We  are  more  apt  to  trust  one  who  is  somewhat 
awkward  and  backward  in  speaking  conventional  untruths. 

Hence  our  conclusion  would  be :  Be  truthful ;  this  holds 
unconditionally;  but  Speak  the  truth  does  not  hold  uncon- 
ditionally. 

5.  How  shall  we  account  for  this  strange  "  rigorism  "  of 
the  moralists,  which  is  everywhere  contradicted  by  life? 
Are  they  perhaps  influenced  by  the  curious  notion  that  the 
"stricter"  their  systems,  the  better  it  will  be  for  the  moral- 
ity of  mankind  ?  It  almost  seems  so.  If  our  moral  systems, 
they  seem  to  think,  leave  the  smallest  loophole  for  falsehood, 
man's  inclination  to  lie  will  gradually  enlarge  it,  and  he 
will  always  find  an  excuse  for  not  speaking  the  truth.  In 
case,  however,  these  systems  absolutely  prohibit  falsehood, 
and  threaten  it  with  the  most  awful  punishments,  —  loss  of 
human  dignity  and  self-respect, — then  he  will  be  on  his 
guard.  As  though  men  always  first  referred  to  a  handbook 
of  morals  before  opening  their  mouths ! 

^  These  lines,  by  the  way,  might  be  taken  as  the  translation  of  a  passage  in 
the  Imitation  of  Christ :  "  It  is  no  great  matter  to  associate  with  the  good  and 
gentle ;  for  this  is  naturally  pleasing  to  all,  and  every  one  willingly  enjoyeth 
peace,  and  loveth  those  best  that  agree  with  him.  But  to  be  able  to  live  peace- 
ably with  hard  and  perverse  persons,  or  with  the  disorderly,  or  with  such  as  go 
contrary  to  us,  is  a  great  grace,  and  a  most  commendable  and  manlv  thing." 
(n,  3.) 


I* 


682 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


But  perhaps  this  rigorism  has  still  another  ground.     It  is 
surprising  that  we   do  not  find  it  among  the  Greek  moral 
philosophers.     Intentional  deception  is  not  only  permitted 
by  them  under  certain  circumstances,  but  even  demanded. 
According  to  Plato,  the  authorities  in  the  ideal  State  must 
employ  deception   as   a  means  of  the  welfare  of  the  gov- 
erned.    Socrates  and  the  Stoics  are  of  the  same  opinion.    Is 
our  sense  of  truth  more  finely  developed  than  theirs?     Are 
we  so  much  superior  to  them  in  veracity  ?     In  my  opinion, 
the  matter  might  be  explained  differently.     I  have  repeat- 
edly referred  to  the  fact  that  we,  to  quote  Lessing,  speak 
most  of  the  virtues  which  we  least  possess,  and  also,  that 
we  condemn  those  vices  most  to  which  we  are  most  inclined. 
The  Greek  philosophers  —  Schopenhauer  is  right  in  this  — 
exhibit  a  measure  of  openness  and  straightforwardness  in  the 
presentation  of  their  thoughts  which  we  seldom  find  in  the 
philosophical  literature  of  modern  times.     Among  the  mod- 
erns there  is  a  tendency  to  compromise  and  extemporize,  to 
accommodation,  to  weaken  the  logical  consequences  of  views, 
to  embellishment,  to  ambiguity,  to   intentional   obscurity, 
which  contrasts  unfavorably  with  the  openness  and  transpar- 
ency of  the  ancients.     Kant  once  confessed  that  though  he 
would  never  say  anything  he  did  not  believe,  he  believed 
many  things  which  he  would  never  say.     A  Greek  might 
have  replied  to  him :  In  that  case  I  do  not  care  very  much 
for  what  you  have  to  say,  for  I  desire  to  know  not  what 
you  are  allowed  to  think  with  the  consent  of  the  high  author- 
ities, but  what  you  actually  think  yourself ! 

We  can  hardly  doubt  that  church  affairs  have  something 
to  do  with  this  attitude.  Intellectual  veracity,  sincerity  in 
matters  of  thought  and  faith,  consistency  in  thinking,  is  not 
one  of  the  virtues  encouraged  by  the  church.  Primitive 
Christianity  had  nothing  whatever  in  common  with  theoreti- 
cal knowledge ;  although  it  practically  demanded  veracity  of 
the  highest  kind,  that  is,  martyrdom.     When  the  church 


1 


VERACITY 


683 


became  triumphant,  and  it  was  no  longer  the  confession  of 
the  creed  but  non-conformity  to  it  that  entailed  martyrdom, 
and  when  the  faith  was  reduced  to  a  kind  of  scientific  sys- 
tem in  theology,  the  spirit  of  humility  and  obedience,  which 
the  church  and  Christianity  both  fostered,  stifled  the  theoret- 
ical love  of  truth :  the  spirit  of  obedience  which  the  individual 
manifested  towards  the  church  and  the  authorities  in  his  whole 
mode  of  life  characterized  his  entire  philosophy.     L.  Wiese 
states  in  his  Autobiography  that  he  has  frequently  observed 
a  certain  lack  of  openness  in  his  intercourse  with  educated 
Catholics,  even  among  persons  who  are  otherwise  honest  and 
upright.    This  lack  of  openness  may  be  found  not  only  among 
Catholics,  but  also  among  Protestants,  although  the  fact  that 
the  individual  is  freer  in  his  relations  to  the  church  and  the 
doctrines  of  the  church  may  perhaps  lessen  the  fault  in  the 
latter  case.     It  is  an  historically  necessary  effect  of  church 
life  as  such,  in  so  far  as  the  demand  that  we  submit  to  the 
church  law  and  the  creed  follows  inevitably  from  the  nature 
of  the  church.    So  long  as  authoritative  doctrines  concerning 
all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  are  formed  and  adhered  to 
on  the  one  side,  and  scientific  and  historical  research  con- 
tinue to  develop  new  conceptions  of  things  on  the  other,  the 
conflict  will  be  inevitable.     Under  such  conditions  the  aver- 
age nature  strives,  for  the  most  part,  to  move  on  the  diagonal 
between  the  creed  and  knowledge.     Historical  faith  and  new 
insight   simultaneously  influence  the  mind  and  urge  it,  in 
accordance  with  the  law  of  the  parallelogram  of  forces,  in 
the  median  direction.     Examine  the  commentaries  on  the 
Gospels   or  the  Lives  of  Christ:  the  impulse  to  save  what 
can  be  saved  of  the  old  time-honored  conceptions  and  inter- 
pretations, and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  concede  as  much  to 
scientific   research  as  must  be  conceded  in  order  that  one 
may  be  regarded  as  an   enlightened  and  progressive  man, 
determines  their  content.     Or  think  of  the  attempts  which 
have  been  made  to  read  into  G-enesis  the  conceptions  of  mod- 


;j 


•r 


i 


684 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


ern  geology.     It  is  to  be  presumed  that  Darwinism  will  be 
discovered  there  before  very  long. 

This  perversion  of  the  intellect  is  not  necessarily  accom- 
panied  by  a  perversion  of  the  will ;  a  frank  and  honest  heart 
may  exist  side  by  side  with  these  diagonal  tendencies  of  the 
intellect.     A  man  may  hesitate  to  depart  from  the  faith  of 
the  church,  without  being  necessarily  inspired  by  the  fear  of 
man  and  the  desire  to  get  along  in  the  world.    Still  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  lack  of  a  theoretical  love  of  truth,  the 
tendency  to  accommodation,  is  often  connected  with  quite 
worldly   considerations  and  intentions.     When  Kepler  lost 
his  position  and  his  income  at  Prague,  after  the  downfall 
of  Rudolph's  Empire,  there  was  a  prospect  of  his  being 
called  to  a  professorship  in  his  home  university  at  Tubingen. 
The   place   was   in   all   respects   a  desirable   one;    but  he 
felt  himself  obliged,  as  an  honest  man,  first  to  inform  the 
Duke  that  his  views  on  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation 
were  not  quite  orthodox,  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  con- 
vince himself  of  the  ubiquity  of  the  body  of  Christ.     Well, 
Kepler  was  not  called.     His  biographer  Reuschle  adds,  in 
reporting  this  episode,  that  Kepler  belonged  to  that  class  of 
honest  men,  to  be  one  of  whom,  as  Hamlet  says,  is  to  be  one 
man  picked  out  of  ten  thousand.     Indeed,  no  one  will  claim 
that  Kepler  represents  the  modern  type  of  scholar  in  this 
respect.     Leibniz  would  be  a  more  fitting  example.     He  was 
never  in  want  of  a  system  of  thought  to  show  the  similarity 
between  his  thinking  and  that  of  some  other  person,  were  it 
an  atheistic  philosopher  or  a  church  believer,  a  Protestant 
or  a  Jesuit,  an  advocate  of  imperial  unity  or  of  the  sover- 
eignty  of  the  princes  in  Germany. 

With  this  status  of  affairs,  it  seems  to  me,  the  inclination  to 
inveigh  against  falsehood  and  to  stigmatize  deception  as 
absolutely  reprehensible  and  disgraceful,  has  something  to  do. 
We  feel  the  need,  in  the  face  of  our  constant  danger,  of  em- 
phasizing to  ourselves  and  to  others,  often  in  the  strongest 


^  11 


VERACITY 


685 


terms,  the  value  of  truthfulness  and  the  disgrace  of  lying  and 
of  trifling  with  the  truth.  The  Greek  philosophers  did  not 
feel  this  need  so  much,  because  they  were  less  exposed  to 
temptation.  Schopenhauer,  whose  proud,  harsh,  and  incon- 
siderate temperament  protected  him  against  the  tendency  to 
accommodation,  occasionally  accuses  Kant  of  affectation  on 
account  of  his  violent  repudiation  of  every  form  of  deception. 
Others  are  of  different  opinion ;  they  admire  Kant's  system 
precisely  because  of  the  harsh  rigor  of  its  formulae  of  duty, 
which  exclude  all  exceptions.  They  also  praise  Luther  as  a 
hero  of  truth,  and  heap  all  kinds  of  abuse  upon  Erasmus  on 
account  of  his  tendency  to  accommodation  and  conciliation. 
Will  the  initiated  conclude  from  this  that  the  tribe  of 
Erasmus  has  died  out,  and  that  our  theologians  and  histori- 
ans are  all  little  Luthers  ? 

6.  We  now  turn  to  the  positive  side  of  veracity.  It  corre- 
sponds to  love  of  neighbor,  and  is  expressed  in  the  formula 
of  duty :  Serve  thy  neighbor  with  the  truth.  Since  the  con- 
duct of  man  is,  to  a  considerable  extent,  dependent  upon 
ideas,  true  ideas  are  of  prime  importance  to  his  welfare. 
The  universal  duty  of  love  of  neighbor,  therefore,  includes 
the  duty  to  assist  one's  neighbor  in  ridding  himself  of  false 
ideas  and  of  acquiring  true  ones. 

This  phase  of  the  question  has  been  too  much  neglected  by 
moralists,  a  fact  which  accounts  for  their  meagre  treatment 
of  veracity  and  also  explains  their  inability  to  do  justice  to 
the  lie  of  necessity.  Whoever  lives  a  life  of  truth  in  the 
main,  will  have  no  trouble  in  settling  the  question  of  decep- 
tion, whenever  it  may  become  necessary  or  expedient.  But 
the  person  whose  truthfulness  consists  solely  in  refraining 
from  telling  lies,  will  be  afraid  of  totally  destroying  his  repu- 
tation in  case  he  should  ever  happen  to  say  what  is  not  true. 
Such  purely  negative  veracity  is,  of  course,  a  rather  paltry 
thing;  it  easily  degenerates  into  the  mere  art  of  avoiding 
direct  falsehood.     Had  the  disciples  of  Christ,   after  the  . 


ii !  li 


n  j 


686 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


death  of  the  Master,  merely  refused  to  deny  Him  directly, 
had  they  returned  to  their  former  callings,  and,  obeying  the 
commands  of  the  authorities  and  the  dictates  of  prudence, 
locked  up  the  memories  of  the  past  in  their  own  hearts,  had 
they  in  pursuance  of  the  maxim  that  it  is  not  our  duty  to  say 
everything  we  believe,  carefully  evaded  every  discussion  of 
their  experiences,  they  certainly  could  have  escaped  the  re- 
proach of  falsehood,  but  they  would  surely  never  have  become 
what  they  now  are :  witnesses  of  the  truth,  whose  testimony 
is  shaping  the  destiny  of  the  centuries. 

Positive  veracity,  which  first  gives  to  negative  veracity 
its  real  meaning  and  value,  manifests  itself,  first,  in  the 
personal  intercourse  with  individuals,  where  it  assumes  the 
form  of  advice,  instruction,  admonition,  and  correction ;  sec- 
ondly, in  the  public  communication  of  the  truth,  where  it  takes 
the  form  of  research,  teaching,  and  preaching. 

According  to  the  first  form,  it  is  my  duty  to  help  the  indi- 
vidual whom  I  find  in  search  of  the  right  path,  or  following 
the  wrong  path,  according  to  my  better  lights.  This  duty, 
too,  must  be  qualified.  Just  as  the  duty  of  love  of  neighbor 
cannot  mean  that  every  one  is  constantly  to  offer  his  aid  to 
everybody  he  meets,  the  duty  of  veracity  cannot  mean  that 
we  are  at  all  times  obliged  to  instruct  and  advise  people,  to 
admonish  and  set  them  right.  In  addition  to  the  limitations 
placed  upon  this  duty  by  the  same  considerations  which  were 
indicated  above  in  respect  to  love  of  neighbor  in  general,  we 
must  take  into  account  other  special  features  depending  upon 
the  special  nature  of  this  kind  of  charity. 

The  duty  to  instruct  and  set  right  presupposes  two  things : 
first,  that  I  am  myself  sure  of  the  right  path ;  secondly,  that 
the  interested  party  is  inclined  to  profit  by  my  advice.  We 
are  essentially  governed  by  these  considerations  in  our  ac- 
tual practice.  I  see  a  stranger  in  the  mountains  turning 
into  a  road  that  leads  nowhere;  I  do  not  hesitate  to  call  to 
him  and  to  direct  him.     When,  on  the  other  hand,  I  find 


VERACITY 


687 


a  person  on  the  point  of  embarking  upon  a  mercantile  or 

literary  venture,  which  I  regard  as  sure  to  fail,  I  seriously 

deliberate  before  advising  him.     If  the  man  is  a  stranger  to 

me,  I  let  him  alone.     I  do  not  know  enough  of  his  situation, 

his  powers,  his  resources,  to  know  what  he  can  do ;  nor  can 

I  assume  that  he  has  confidence  enough  in  my  judgment  to 

accept  my  advice :  perhaps  it  would  simply  confuse  him  or 

anger  him.     I  therefore,   at   least,  wait   until  I  am  asked, 

and  even   then   it  will   often   be   doubtful  whether  I  ought 

to  give  the  desired  information.     There  are  people  who  ask 

others'  advice  and  then  do  as  they  please,  simply  in  order 

to  shift  the  blame  upon  them  in  case  of  failure,  whether 

they  have   advised  for  or  against  the  project.     Whenever 

these  difficulties  are  not  in  the  way  I  shall  be  more  inclined 

to  communicate  my  views  of  the  matter.     The  better  I  know 

the  person  and  the  circumstances,  and  the  more  interest  I 

take  in  his  welfare   because  of   my  particular  relations  to 

him,  the  more  willing  I  shall  be  to  advise  him. 

The  ability  to  judge  where  and  when  it  is  proper  to  aid 
others  with  advice  and    instruction,  may  be  called   discre^ 
tion.      The  opposite,  indiscretion,  the  inability  to  keep  from 
advising  and  instructing  people,  is  a  quality  that  will  make 
a  person  disliked  by  his  fellows  sooner  than  anything  else, 
especially  when  it  appears  in  young  men.     It  is  particularly 
necessary  for  one  to  be  on  one's  guard  when  it  comes  to  rep- 
rimanding or  blaming  people.     Uncalled-for  blame  angers  a 
man  and  strengthens  him  in  his  perverseness.     The  habit  of 
finding  fault  and  speaking  evil  is  a  real  vice.     Here  the  pur- 
pose is  not  to  serve  the  neighbor  with  the  truth,  but  to  flat- 
ter one's  self-love  and  vanity.     The   Gospel  does  not  warn 
us  so  earnestly  against  fault-finding  for  nothing.    Insinuat- 
ing itself  into  our  hearts  in  the  guise  of  sincerity  and  love  of 
truth,  this  habit  becomes  a  soul-destroying  vice.     It  extin- 
guishes brotherly  love :   we  naturally  hate  a  man  whom  we 
have  wronged,  even  though  it  be  in  secret.     It   leads    to 


ITH 


688 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


flattery  and  falsehood :  we  try  to  make  the  interested  person 
believe  that  we  will  not  pronounce  a  similar  judgment  upon 
him  when  his  back  is  turned.  It  prevents  us  from  being 
true  to  ourselves:  the  man  who  is  always  beholding  the 
mote  that  is  in  his  brother's  eye,  at  last  cannot  see  the  beam 
that  is  in  his  own  eye.  Hence  the  rule  is:  Speak  of  evil 
only  when  the  good  is  promoted  thereby ;  and,  for  the  rest, 
turn  all  things  to  good.^ 

7.    The  other  phase  of  the  problem,  the  public  communica- 
tion of   the   truth,    demands   a   somewhat    more    elaborate 

treatment. 

To  know  the  truth  as  a  whole,  as  contained  in  philosophy 
and  science,  is  not  a  function  of  the  individual  mind  as  such ; 
a  people,  or,  in  the  last  analysis,  humanity,  is  the  bearer  of 
the  truth,  the  individual  shares  in  it  as  the  member  of  a 
people.  The  little  fraction  which  he  possesses,  he  possesses 
as  the  heir  of  the  past;  he  thinks  with  the  logical  and 
metaphysical  categories  which  the  popular  mind  has  devel- 
oped in  the  course  of  thousands  of  years,  and  has  incor- 
porated into  grammatical  forms.  He  sees  things  through 
the  ideas  and  notions  which  his  age  places  at  his  dis- 
posal, he  labors  upon  the  solution  of  the  problems  which  it 
suggests  to  him.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  no  less  true  that 

1  In  Wackernagel's    Treasury  of  German  Poetry  and  Wisdom  {Edehteine 
deutscher  Dichtung  und   WeisheU),  vol.  XIIL,  is  found  a  sermon  of   Brother 
David  of  Augsburg,  which  offers  a  piece  of  advice  which  we  ought  to  take  to 
heart  •  "  Ziuch  din  gemuete  von  allem,  das  dich  niht  anget.     Laz  einen  jeglichen 
sin  dine  ahten  unde  sinen  siten  halten  unde  schaf  dft  mit  gote  din  dine.    Swes 
aber  du  maht  gebezzert  werden,  des  nim  alleine  war ;  das  ander  laz  hin  g§n. 
Bekumber  din  herze  niht  mit  urteile,  wan  dft  niht  wizzen  kanst,  umbbe  welhe 
Sache  Oder  in  welhem  sinne  daz  geschiht,  daz  d(i  urteilst ;  wan  als  wir  (izen  ofte 
missesehen  einez  fur  daz  ander,  also  misseraten   wir  ofte  ein  guotez  fur  em 
boesez  als  der  schelhe,  der  zwel  siht  fur  einez  und  ist  daran  betrogen.    Maht 
duz  aber  niht  zu  guote  keren,  dennoch  bekiimber  dich  niht  da  mite.    Ez  ist  vil 
unverrihtunge  in  der  kristenheit.  der  d(i  aller  niht  verrihten  maht.    Lid  emez 
mit  dem  andern.    Des  dft  niht  trftwest  gebezzern,  da  uebe  din  gedult  an.     Swa 
aber  von  diuem  swigen  iht  ungevelliges  wahsen  miihte.  daz  von  diner  rede  mac 
gebezzert  werden,  da  sprich  zuo,  senfteclichen,  ernstliche,  ane  strit,  daz  da  dich 
da  mite  unschuldigest,  daz  duz  iht  teilhaftic  slst,  des  man  dich  anspreche." 


VERACITY 


689 


the   collective   mind  exercises  the  functions   only  through 
individual  minds  as  its  organs. 

Here  a  notable  difference  may  be  observed:  individuals 
do  not  all  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  this  function.  The 
masses  always  participate  in  the  truth  in  a  rather  receptive, 
passive  manner,  while  nature  chooses  only  a  few  distin- 
guished minds  as  bearers  and  increasers  of  knowledge.  If 
we  designate  the  latter  with  the  old  term  of  clergy  (clerus), 
which  includes  all  spiritual  leaders  of  the  people,  its  inves- 
tigators and  teachers,  its  thinkers  and  poets,  we  may  say: 
The  public  communication  of  the  truth  is  the  true  life-calling 
of  the  cleruB,  and  veracity  is  the  specific  duty,  as  it  were  the 
professional  virtue  of  the  clericus. 

But  we  may  again  distinguish  two  phases  in  this  virtue : 
we  may  call  them  sincerity  and  the  love  of  truth.  The 
former  is  the  universal  and  elementary  virtue  of  the  clericus  : 
it  consists  in  this,  that  he  simply  and  clearly,  conscien- 
tiously and  faithfully,  employs  the  truth  in  teaching  and 
preaching,  in  theory  and  in  practice.  It  is  the  fundamental 
precondition  of  his  power  to  do  good  in  so  far  as  the  latter 
depends  upon  the  confidence  which  the  laymen  have  in  him. 
But  confidence  is  gained  only  by  simplicity  and  sincerity  of 
heart  and  intellect.  Inquisitive  love  of  truth,  on  the  other 
liand,  is  the  special  duty  of  the  true  investigator  and  path- 
finder ;  it  is  the  passionate  impulse  which  incites  the  historical 
or  natural-scientific  investigator  to  discover  new  facts  and  to 
penetrate  more  deeply  into  their  relations.  It  is  the  im- 
pulse which,  urging  the  thinker  constantly  to  test  the  estab- 
lished views  and  theories,  is  forever  on  its  guard  against 
error  even  in  the  form  of  established  opinions.  It  is  the  love 
of  truth  which  inspires  the  poet  and  thinker  who  seeks  to 
comprehend  and  express  the  secret  meaning  of  life  and  the 
universe  in  new  thoughts  and  symbols.  It  is  the  love  of  truth, 
finally,  which  impels  the  great  leaders  of  mankind,  the 
prophets  and  reformers,  to  discover  new,  untrodden  paths  of 

44 


690 


DOCTRINE  OF   VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


1 

'i 


life.  Plus  ultra,  that  is  the  watchword  of  these  pathfinders 
of  the  future,  who  are  laboring  for  the  civilization  of  hu- 
manity. They  are  restrained  by  no  authority,  by  no  preju- 
dice, be  it  ever  so  sacred,  they  follow  the  light  which 
burns  in  their  hearts. 

The  love  of  truth  finds  its  highest  expression  in  martyr- 
dom. We  should  expect  the  nations  to  turn  to  their  great 
leaders  and  pathfinders  in  thankful  admiration.  And  so  they 
do,  but  it  is  only  after  their  death  that  mortal  men  are  reck- 
oned among  the  gods.  Martyrdom  is  the  great  purifier  by 
which  humanity  tests  the  genuineness  of  new  truths ;  it  is 
the  narrow  portal  through  which  heroes  pass  into  immor- 
tality. This  has  been  the  method  of  humanity  from  times 
immemorial,  and  it  is  not  hard  to  see  the  historical  necessity 
of  this  fact,  which  is  so  surprising  at  first  sight. 

8.    Let  me  first  try  to  show  the  psychological  necessity. 

The  conceptions  and  truths  of  a  people  become  —  and  that 
is  their  true  function  —  the  ideal  basis  of  its  institutions,  of 
the  state  and  the  law,  of  the  church  and  the  school.  All 
kinds  of  arts  and  practices  depend  upon  our  views  and  ideas 
of  the  nature  of  things  and  of  men,  their  relations  to  each 
other  and  to  the  universe.  Originally  the  entire  life  of  every 
nation  and  all  its  institutions  were  based  upon  religion. 
Every  religion,  however,  contains  a  philosophy  of  history 
and  a  metaphysic,  —  the  precipitate  of  all  the  experiences 
of  a  people  with  the  world  and  its  relations  to  the  world. 
Hence  it  follows  that  every  attempt  at  a  radical  change  of 
views  is  regarded  as  a  menace  to  the  entire  life ;  the  weaken- 
ing of  the  theoretical  foundations  will  result  in  the  shatter- 
ing of  all  the  institutions  founded  upon  them.  And  this  is 
not  an  illusion.  All  great  revolutions  in  the  world  of  institu- 
tions had  as  their  starting-point  revolutions  in  the  world  of 
thoughts.  Nowhere  is  this  more  clearly  seen  than  in  the 
most  recent  events  of  European  history.  The  long  series  of 
revolutions  which  fill  the  pages  of  modern  history  are  the 


VERACITY 


691 


after-effects  of  the  changes  in  the  world  of  ideas  which,  after 
the  fifteenth  century,  undermined  the  mediaeval  conception  of 
the  universe  which  had  been  systematized  in  the  dogmas  of 
the  church.  The  great  historical  and  geographical,  cosmical 
and  physical  discoveries,  which  were  made  in  surprising 
numbers  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  sixteenth  century,  first 
made  possible  the  ecclesiastical  revolutions,  then  the  eco- 
nomic and  political  revolutions,  which  since  then  have 
shaken  Germany,  England,  and  Prance,  and  which  have  not 
yet  come  to  an  end.  Wherever,  however,  the  world  of 
thought  remains  stable,  as  was  the  case  in  China,  the  world 
of  institutions  persists  in  its  old  forms. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  institutions  resist  every  at- 
tempt that  may  be  made  to  change  the  conceptions.     They 
defend  tradition  as  the  basis  of  their  existence.     We  might 
imagine  them  arguing  as  follows :  The  welfare  of  a  people 
depends  upon   the  stability  and  trustworthiness  of  its  in- 
stitutions.    A  revolution  that  affects  any  important  part 
of  its  institutions  is  always   a   serious,   nay,  a   dangerous 
crisis.     The  stability  of  these,  however,  depends  upon  their 
authority,  hence  it  cannot  be  permitted  to  question  their 
theoretical  foundations.     Every  criticism  against  the  funda- 
mental conceptions  upon  which  the  institutions  rest,  under- 
mines the  ground  upon  which  the  security  and  welfare,  nay, 
the  very  life,  of  the  people  depend.     Criticism  must  there- 
fore stop  short  of  the  principles  which  underlie  the  church, 
the  state,  and  society.  —  Though  this  applies  to  all,  it  applies 
particularly  to  the  clerus.     For  their  function  is  to  serve  so- 
ciety by  preserving  and  defending  the  truth.     Things  would 
be  in  a  bad  shape  if  any  one  could  at  any  time  set  up  his 
own  notions  and  private  opinions,  and  sit  in  judgment  upon 
these  fundamental  truths. 

The  institutions  themselves  are  supported  by  the  private 
interests  which  are  intertwined  with  them.  Institutions  do 
not  exist  in  the  abstract,  but  in  human  beings,  who  have 


i, 


692 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VERACITY 


693 


adapted  their  entire  lives  to  them.     In  the  stability  of  the 
educational  institutions,  the  military  institutions,  the  polit- 
ical  and  ecclesiastical  systems,  those  are  particularly  and 
directly  interested  who  are  employed  as  teachers  and  officers, 
as  state  and  church  officials.     I  mean  interested  not  merely 
in  the  vulgar  sense  that  they  and  their  families  depend  for 
their  support  upon  the  permanence  of  the  institutions  — 
which  is  often  no  longer  the  case  in  consequence  of  our  pres- 
ent pension  system  —  but  interested  especially  in  the  ideal 
sense,  for  whoever  denies  the  necessity  or  the  value  of  these 
institutions,  deprives  these  persons  of  the  ideal  basis  of  their 
existence ;  he  seems,  by  demanding  a  change  of  system,  to 
declare  that  their  functions  and  their  lives  are  futile.     A 
schoolmaster  of  the  eighteenth  century,  who  had  reached  an 
honorable  old  age  in  the  practice  of  his  profession,  instructing 
the  young  in  Latin  composition,  could  not  but  have  regarded 
the  reforms  of  the  innovators  who  repudiated  these  things  as 
exploded  errors  and  desired  to  introduce  others  —  mathe- 
matics and  natural  science,   German  and  French  —  as  an 
abandonment  of  something  that  had  been  tried  by  experience, 
of  something  hallowed  by  tradition.     Should  that  which  he 
and  his  father  and  his  grandfather  had  learned  and  practised 
and  admired  as  a  masterpiece  of  human  culture  and  erudition, 
be  now  set  aside  ?    And  should  things  be  put  in  its  place  which 
he  did  not  possess  and  did  not  need,— quite   unnecessary 
things,  no  doubt;  for  had  he  not  been  educated  and  learned, 
respected  and  happy  without  them  ?    Impossible ;  only  crim- 
inal carelessness  and  ignorance  of  the  true  value  of  things  can 
lead  to  such  perverse  thoughts !     In  the  same  way,  the  clergy- 
man will  meet  all  attempts  to  change  the  church  institutions  or 
the  creed ;  the  general,  attacks  upon  the  military  organization 
or  the  army-ration ;  the   privy  councillor,    changes  in  the 
state  constitution  and  administrative  practice.     All  of  them 
will   feel   inclined  to  look  upon  the  demanded  changes  at 
least  as  quite  unnecessary  innovations,  usually,  however,  as 


the  beginnings  of  an  obnoxious  and  ruinous  revolution. 
Should  they  really  be  introduced,  the  ruin  of  the  country, 
the  destruction  of  the  army,  the  overthrow  of  religion,  would 
be  the  inevitable  result.  Thus  our  learned  school  authorities 
have  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  prophesied  the  return 
of  the  barbarism  of  the  Middle  Ages  every  time  they  were 
disturbed  in  their  obsolete  pedantry.  In  order  to  guard 
against  all  such  calamities  from  the  very  outset,  all  author- 
ities are  agreed  that  the  best  and  safest,  and  therefore  most 
advisable  thing  to  do  is  to  deal  rigorously  with  the  unbridled 
criticism  to  which  youthful,  inexperienced,  or  malicious 
heads  are  unfortunately  always  inclined. 

The  opposition  of  the  authorities  finds  support  in  the  in- 
stinctive aversion  of  all  privileged  and  propertied  classes  to 
changes,  and  in  the  inertia  of  the  masses.  The  propertied 
classes  are  always  conservative;  they  are  " saturated, "  and 
therefore  intent  upon  preservation  and  peace.  Happy  and 
contented  are  those  in  possession  —  thus  we  might  translate 
the  old  maxim  of  the  jurists ;  they  do  not  crave  for  the  new, 
but  fear  it.  But  the  masses^  too,  are  conservative  by  nature. 
The  established  order  is  the  habitual  order ;  we  have  adapted 
ourselves  to  it;  the  new  is,  under  all  circumstances,  strange 
and  inconvenient,  apt  to  be  ridiculous  and  forbidding.  How 
many  sighs  may  not  have  been  caused  during  the  seventies 
by  the  new  weights  and  measures  and  the  new  coins  I  Things 
did  n't  fit,  the  litre  did  n't  suit  the  pot  nor  the  metre  the  body. 
We  feel  uncomfortable  in  a  new  house;  nothing  is  in  its 
place,  no  cozy  nook  reminds  us  of  pleasant  hours.  New 
institutions  affect  a  nation  in  the  same  way,  and  therefore  it 
shuns  change.  And  for  the  same  reason  the  masses  have  an 
instinctive  fear  of  all  criticism;  they,  too,  feel  that  this 
undermines  the  ground  upon  which  the  institutions  rest 
which  have  become  endeared  to  them  or  endurable  through 
habit.  Bitter  experiences  or  strong  pressure  are  required  to 
arouse  in  them  a  strong  desire  for  change. 


I 


m 


r;  -111 


>-:,: 


694  DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 

We  might  at  last  also  speak  of  the  inertia  of  the  old  concep- 
tions themselves.     When  the  Copernican  theory  of  the  celes- 
tial  motions  was   first  advanced,  it   was   regarded  by  the 
authorities  as  an  unfruitful  or  absurd  hypothesis,  which  did 
not  deserve  serious   consideration,  except,  perhaps,  to  be 
refuted  so  that  the  devil  might  not  play  his  tricks  with  it 
and  use  it  to  deride  the  word  of  God.     They  did  not  find  the 
new  view  in  any  way  suited  to  explain  the  phenomena;  the 
old  geocentric  idea  explained  things   so  naturally  that,  in 
comparison   with   it,  the   new  one   seemed   awkward,  nay, 
absurd  and  nonsensical.     For,  do  we  not  feel  that  the  earth 
is  fixed,  do  we  observe  even  the  slightest  evidence  of  this 
fabulous  motion  which  is  falsely  ascribed  to  it  ?     The  new 
theory  was  developed  by  Kepler  and  Galileo,  and  the  age  of 
ridicule  was  followed  by  the  age  of  refutation  and  persecu- 
tion.     The  old  ideas  really  began  to  appreciate  their  peril, 
which  was  not  yet  the  case  in  the  sixteenth  century.     Now 
they  reacted  with   all  the  means  at  their  command ;  what 
these  were  we  may  learn  from  the  biographies  of  Kepler  and 
Galileo.     The  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  by 
Harvey  met  with  a  similar  fate.     The  physicians  who  had 
for  so   many  centuries   looked  at  things   and   treated   men 
according  to  the  Galenian  theory  could  not  see  what  advan- 
tacres  were  to  be  derived  from  the  new  hypothesis,  either 
theoretically  or  practically.     And  how  unreasonable  to  de- 
mand  that  one  should  repudiate  one's  own  past,  and  over- 
throw the   authorities   of  the  centuries  on  account  of  this 
queer-headed  fellow !    In  the  same  way  the  authorities  re- 
jected Darwin's  biological  theories  and  Strauss's  researches 
in  evangelical  history,  in  a  later  century,  as  untrue,  useless, 

and  dangerous. 

Thus  the  old  truths  are  protected  by  a  mighty  dam  of  con- 
servative interests  against  the  flood  of  new  thoughts.  No 
new  truths  shall  come  into  the  world ;  in  this  the  authorities 
and  the   masses,  the  established  order  and  the   prevailing 


VERACITY 


695 


truths,  are  agreed.  That  is,  no  important  and  great  truths, 
no  new  ideas  and  fundamental  conceptions ;  expositions  and 
elaborations,  supplementations  and  corrections,  applications 
and  adaptations  of  the  recognized  theories  and  opinions,  — 
these  are  permitted,  and  not  only  permitted,  but  welcomed  and 
publicly  rewarded.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  time  which 
was  so  liberal  in  rewarding  such  work  as  the  present.  And 
this  is  perfectly  proper  and  commendable :  the  great  truths 
would  have  made  their  way  even  without  the  rewards.  Al- 
though Truth  is,  to  quote  Bacon,  a  bride  without  a  dowry,  she 
has  never  wanted  for  suitors.  Petty  and  laborious  tasks,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  investigation  of  manuscripts  and  the 
description  of  fungi  and  bugs,  the  entire  work  of  scientific 
registration,  which,  too,  is  necessary,  possibly  lack  inner 
attractiveness,  and  it  is  therefore  right  that  the  efficient 
performance  of  such  duties  should  be  publicly  rewarded. 

The  consequence  of  the  opposition  of  the  combined  con- 
servative interests  is,  then,  that  new  ideas  are  invariably 
presented  to  the  world  by  martyrs.  A  peculiar  custom  is 
ascribed  to  the  Locrians :  whoever  introduced  a  measure  for 
altering  the  Existing  laws,  was  compelled  to  appear  in  the 
popular  meeting  in  which  he  argued  for  it  with  a  rope 
around  his  neck,  by  which  he  was  hung  up  if  he  did  not 
succeed  in  convincing  his  fellow-citizens.  An  ingenious 
custom !  History  acts  in  the  same  way,  with  the  difference, 
however,  that  she  first  uses  the  rope  and  convinces  herself 

afterwards. 

9.  Thus  the  attitude  of  mankind  to  new  truths  is  psycho- 
logically necessary.     But  it  is  also  teleologically  necessary. 

Historical  life  is  evidently  not  possible  without  fixed  and 
permanent  institutions ;  they  are  the  means  by  which  collec- 
tive reason  determines  and  governs  the  life  of  the  individual. 
The  many,  we  might  say,  somewhat  modifying  a  remark  of 
Heraclitus,  although  they  believe  they  are  living  according 
to  their  own  insight,  are  in  reality  governed  by  the  common 


iir 


I 


696 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


reason.  Now  institutions  could  not  acquire  stability,  if  new 
ideas  were  to  rush  through  the  heads  of  men,  meeting  with 
no  resistance,  like  the  wind  over  a  stubble-field.  Permanent 
conceptions  are  the  preconditions  of  permanent  institutions. 
Hence,  in  order  that  historical  life  may  be  possible,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  thoughts  become  fixed  and  take  firm  root 
in  the  minds  of  men,  and  offer  resistance  to  new  thoughts 
which  seek  to  push  them  out.  Perhaps  they  cannot  be  estab- 
lished firmly  enough,  at  first,  without  a  transcendent  sanc- 
tion. This  would  explain  the  teleological  necessity  of  a 
religious  metaphysic,  which  we  actually  find  everywhere, 
as  the  original  foundation  of  the  faith  and  the  life  of  a 
people,  of  its  morals  and  laws,  and  which  usually  offers 
such  great  resistance  to  the  introduction  of  new  truths. 
Nay,  we  can  manifestly  form  no  conception  whatever  of  a 
mental-historical  life  in  which  we  should  not  have  to  battle 
for  the  truth  against  error  and  prejudice;  of  what  would  it 
consist  ?     Without  friction  no  motion. 

Nor  need  we  expect  these  pathfinders  and  martyrs  of  truth 
to  quarrel  with  fate  on  this  account.  Lessing's  words  re- 
garding the  possession  and  pursuit  of  truth  are  well  known. 
He  surely  would  not  have  desired  that  truths  be  acquired 
otherwise  than  by  struggle.  Not  all  of  those  who  have 
battled  for  the  truth  were  as  fond  of  struggle  as  Lessing. 
Yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  one  among  them  would  have 
been  willing  to  change  the  order  of  nature,  had  it  been  in 
his  power  to  do  so.  That  constitutes  the  special  glory  of  a 
witness  of  the  truth,  an  inner  voice  might  have  whispered  to 
him,  in  case  the  tempter  had  approached  him,  to  be  slan- 
dered and  persecuted  by  the  present.  If,  instead  of  this, 
the  discoverers  and  pioneers  of  new  truths  were  honored 
during  their  lives,  as  they  are  honored  by  posterity,  these 
honors,  too,  would  be  taken  away  from  them  by  the  skilful 
and  the  ambitious.  Then  the  vain  and  self-conceited  would 
be  eternally  pushing  themselves  to  the  front  with  new  opin- 


VERACITY 


697 


ions.  Owing  to  this  beneficent  arrangement,  the  spiritual 
leadership  of  humanity  is  finally  reserved  for  men  of  great, 
earnest,  and  unselfish  hearts.  That  would  be  impossible  if 
the  truth  flattered  their  contemporaries.  And,  therefore 
this  inner  voice  may  have  concluded,  it  is  good  that  the 
stones  intended  as  corner-stones  of  the  future  should  be 
rejected  by  the  builders  of  the  present. 

Wenn  das  Gute  wiirde  vergolten, 
So  ware  es  keine  Kunst  es  zu  thun  ; 
Aber  Verdienst  ist  es  nun 
Zu  thun,  wofiir  du  wirst  gescholten. 

Thus  all  those  may  console  themselves  with  Riickert  who 
are  abused  for  truth  and  justice'  sake,  —  if,  indeed,  they  need 
any  consolation.  For  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  great 
martyrs  of  truth  did  not  leave  the  world  with  hatred  and 
bitterness.  Jesus  prayed  upon  the  cross  for  his  persecutors : 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

They  did  not   intend  to  persecute  the  truth,    but  error, 

destructive  error.  Nay,  they  themselves  had  to  serve  the 
truth  as  unconscious  organs.  "Must  not  the  Son  of  man 
suffer  and  die  in  order  that  all  things  might  be  fulfilled  ?  " 
How  could  the  victory  be  won  without  the  last  battle  ? 

A  paradoxically-inclined  person  might  even  reason  as  fol- 
lows :  It  is  really  to  be  deplored  that  so  little  zeal  is  shown 
in  persecuting  new  truths  in  our  times.     The  result  is  that 
great  characters  are  no  longer  formed,  as  of  old,  when  wit- 
nesses of  the  truth  and  pioneers  of  thought  were  crucified  and 
burned.     Take  the  life  of  Carlyle.     Beyond  doubt,  he  was  by 
nature  and  temperament  made  of  the  stuff  of  witnesses  of  the 
truth,  prophets,  and  martyrs:  what  might  he  not  have  be- 
come if  he  had  lived  three  centuries  earlier !    In  this  weak 
nineteenth  century  he  was  partially  overwhelmed  by  paltry 
troubles,  — troubles  with  reviewers  and  publishers  of  period- 
icals, troubles  with  his  neighbors'  cocks  and  dogs.     These 
were  his  battles,  battles  of  no  very  elevating  nature,  how- 


698 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


ever  honestly  and  valiantly  he  may  have  fought  them.  This 
state  of  affairs,  too,  makes  it  hard  for  men  to  recognize  what 
is  truly  great  and  enduring.  Whether  a  man  is  thoroughly 
in  earnest  with  a  cause  will  be  perfectly  evident  only  in  case 
he  is  willing  to  offer  his  life  for  it. 

However,  I  do  not  deem  it  superfluous  to  add  a  remark  to 
these  entire  reflections.     Universal  affirmative  propositions 
cannot,  as  is  known,  be  converted  simply.     From  the  propo- 
sition. All  great  new  truths  were  persecuted  and  rejected  as 
heresies  at  their  first  appearance,  it  does  not  follow  that  all 
heresies  and  paradoxes  are  great  new  truths.     Writers  who 
are  despised  and  repudiated  by  their  contemporaries  are  in 
the  habit  of  reasoning  thus,  and  of  appealing  from  the  pres- 
ent to  posterity.     But  posterity  does  not  accept  all   such 
appeals.     Not  all  those  who   are   called   are  chosen;  there 
are  false   prophets   and   even   false    martyrs.       Great   and 
extraordinary  powers  are  needed  to  bear  the   overthrow  of 
recognized  truths.     When   common   natures   are  driven  by 
accident  and   circumstances   to   battle   against    recognized 
truths    and    established    authorities,    they    become    empty 
blatherskites.     Are  these  more  common  in  our  age  than 
formerly  ?     If  so,  we  may  perhaps  attribute  it  to  the  fact 
that  serious   persecutions  no   longer  occur  in   our  times; 
minds  were  winnowed  by  martyrdom. 

10.  I  shall  close  this  entire  discussion  with  a  considera- 
tion of  the  question :  Does  the  duty  of  communicating  truth 
universally  demand  the  destruction  of  error  wherever  and  in 
whatever  form  it  may  appear  ?  It  is  one  of  the  great  con- 
troversies which  have  always  moved  mankind.  We  may  de- 
fine it  as  the  controversy/  between  the  will  and  the  intellect^ 
between  the  practical  and  speculative  sides  of  human  nature. 
The  will,  turned  towards  self-preservation,  demands,  as  was 
shown  above,  stability  of  institutions,  and  therefore  also 
of  the  conceptions  upon  which  they  are  grounded.  The 
spiritual  and  temporal  authorities,  which  we  may  term  the 


VERACITY 


699 


representatives  of  the  will  in  history,  therefore  always 
incline  to  the  demand  that  certain  things  be  fixed  once  and 
for  all,  which  criticism  should  not  be  permitted  to  disturb. 
The  intellect,  on  the  contrary,  refuses  to  close  the  debate; 
to  hinder  the  continuation  of  the  investigation  means  for  it 
the  perpetuation  of  error.  The  end  of  all  research  is  the 
absolute  accommodation  of  knowledge  to  reality.  But  this 
goal  is  infinitely  remote,  and  hence  the  attempt  better  to 
adapt  the  conceptual  system  to  reality  must  be  constantly 
renewed.  Nor  are  the  fundamental  principles  excepted; 
they,  too,  must  be  subjected  to  progressive  changes,  if  only 
for  the  reason  that  the  constant  extension  and  intensification 
of  particular  knowledge  ultimately  demands  a  rearrange- 
ment of  the  facts. 

The  antagonism  between  these  two  tendencies,  formulated 
as  a  conflict  of  principles,  turns  upon  the  question :  Is  truth 
under  all  circumstances  good  and  error  harmful  f  Or  may  the 
preservation  of  error  at  times  be  necessary,  and  its  destruc- 
tion harmful  ?  The  politicians,  if  we  may  designate  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  will  by  this  term,  affirm  the  latter,  the 
philosophers,  the  representatives  of  the  intellect,  the  former 
question. 

If  the  question  is  asked  absolutely  and  universally,  it  will 
be  impossible  to  answer  it  otherwise  than  with  the  philoso- 
phers :  Truth  is  good,  error  harmful.  Since  things  do  not 
govern  themselves  according  to  our  opinions,  we  must 
govern  our  opinions  according  to  things.  Things,  says 
Bishop  Butler,  are  what  they  are,  and  their  effects  will  be 
what  they  are ;  why  should  we  wish  to  deceive  ourselves  ? 
A  negro  attempts  to  make  rain  or  to  cure  diseases  by  magic. 
He  is  doubly  harmed ;  he  wastes  his  energies,  while  disease 
and  drouth  remain. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  be  impossible  to  deny  that 
the  destruction  of  an  erroneous  idea  does  not,  under  all  cir- 
cumstanceSy  promote  the  welfare   of  him  who   harbors   it 


700 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES   AND  DUTIES 


P"  H 


Hence  an  inadequate  idea  may  be  better  than  none  at  all; 
and  the  conditions  may  be  such  as  to  make  it  possible  to 
undermine  the  false  conception  without  establishing  the  true 
one.  It  may  be  possible  to  deprive  a  negro  of  his  faith  in 
the  fetich,  without  at  the  same  time  giving  him  true  ideas 
of  the  natural  connection  of  things.  Would  he  then  be  bene- 
fited by  being  freed  from  error  ?  Fetiches  are  employed  by 
negroes  for  the  protection  of  property;  the  thief  fears  the 
magic,  and  it  frequently  happens  that  stolen  goods  are  re- 
turned in  consequence.  It  may  be  a  very  imperfect  police 
force,  but  it  is  perhaps  better  than  none  at  all.  A  wooden 
leg,  says  Schopenhauer,  is  better  than  none  at  all,  and  any 
religion  better  than  none. 

We  must  remember  that  truths  are  not  ready-made  things, 
which  pass  from  hand  to  hand  like  coins ;  truths  are  living 
functions,  and  do  not  exist  in  any  other  form.     Hence  they 
cannot  really  be  communicated.     A  person  may  assist  me  in 
creating  thoughts,  but  he  cannot  transfer  his  thoughts  to  me ; 
I  can  only  think  the  thoughts  which  I  myself  produce.     And 
the  assistance  which  he  renders  me  herein  does  not  always 
consist  in  his  repeating  to  me  the  thoughts  with  which  he  is 
familiar.     The  straightest  path  is  by  no  means  always  the 
shortest  in  history.     At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury the  Middle  Ages  became  acquainted  with  the  natural- 
scientific  writings  of  Aristotle.     Our  natural  scientists  will 
hardly  see  in  them  anything  but  a  more  or  less  subtle  web  of 
errors.     And  yet  these  books  were  undoubtedly  of  great  value 
to  the   thirteenth    century,  perhaps  of   much  greater  value 
than  the  most  perfect  text-books  of  the  present  could  have 
been  to   it.     If  the   best  handbooks  of  physics,  chemistry, 
and  astronomy,  which  the  nineteenth  century  has  brought 
forth,  had  fallen  from  the  skies,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
they  would  most  likely  have  been  thrown  aside,  after  a  brief 
examination,  as  utterly  unintelligible  and  useless  things. 
The  thinkers  of  those  davs  would  not  have  known  what  to  do 


VERACITY 


701 


with  them,  any  more  than  we  know  what  to  do  with  books 
full  of  cabalistic  symbols  and  formulae.     Hence,  if  any  one 
in  his  zeal  for  the  truth,  if,  for  instance,  that  omnipotent 
being  of  Descartes,  had  interfered,  not  in  order  to  deceive, 
but  to  prevent  deception,  and  had  destroyed  the  Aristotelian 
books  and  sent  the  others  down  from  heaven,  what  would 
have  been  the  result  ?    Evidently  the  development  of  natural 
science  among  the  Western  nations  would  have  been,  if  not 
prevented,  at  least  retarded  for  several  centuries.     Without 
the  assistance  of  a  teacher  adapted  to  their  needs,  these 
nations  would  have  had  to  enter  upon  the  long  road  to 
knowledge  alone,  and  who  knows  whether  they  ever  would 
have  found  it  ?     Had  the  solution  of  the  riddle  —  if  we  are 
bold  enough  to  regard  the  text-books  of  the  present  as  such  — 
been  communicated  to  them,  it  would  scarcely  have  helped 
them.    It  is  well  known  that  investigators  for  centuries  tried 
to  find  the  philosopher's  stone,  which  was  supposed  to  be 
able  to  turn  everything  it  touched  into  gold.     They  did  not 
find  the  stone,  but  the  science  of  chemistry.     The  stone  was 
a  fiction,  but  the  fiction  led  to  the  truth  after  all :  for  does 
not  chemistry  turn  everything  into  gold  ? 

Now  the  different  stages  of  development  are  not  only  suc- 
cessive, but  also  simultaneous.  The  electrical  arc  light  and 
the  tallow  candle  exist  side  by  side ;  and  each  may  be  appro- 
priate in  its  place.  So,  too,  different  physical  and  meta- 
physical conceptions  and  fundamental  principles  exist  side 
^  by  side ;  the  investigator  and  thinker  and  the  little  mother 
in  the  remote  mountain  nook,  cannot  think  the  world 
with  the  same  thoughts.  Truth  is  one,  the  conception  of 
things  projected  upon  the  perfect  intellect ;  but  the  real  in- 
tellects are  more  or  less  imperfect,  and  therefore  require 
different  methods  of  conceiving  things. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  controversy  between  the  poli- 
ticians and  the  philosophers,  it  seems  to  me,  may  be  settled. 

The  philosophers  are  right  in  this:  no  limits  are  to  be  set 


W: 


702 


DOCTRINE   OF   VIRTUES   AND   DUTIES 


to  research.  Whatever  new  thoughts  a  nation  produces,  will 
be  suitable  and  good  for  it.  We  may  cherish  the  belief  that 
nature,  here  as  everywhere,  brings  forth  at  the  proper  time 
what  is  appropriate  and  necessary.  Every  advance  in  knowl- 
edge, viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  total  development 
of  a  popular  life,  is  a  genuine  advance.  The  investigator  as 
such  can  therefore  be  concerned  with  no  other  question  than 
this :  What  is  true  ?  But  since  there  can  be  no  research  with- 
out communication,  we  must  say  further  that  no  limit  shall 
be  set  to  the  communication  of  knowledge.  The  scientific 
writer  has  but  one  concern :  How  shall  I  most  clearly  and 
definitely  present  the  things  as  I  see  them  ?  Whoever  allows 
himself  to  be  governed  by  considerations  and  purposes  of  a 
different  kind,  whoever  is  thinking,  first  and  last,  how  he 
may  please  this  man  and  avoid  displeasing  that  one,  does  not 
serve  the  truth,  and  therefore  the  truth  also  despises  him. 
Truth  gives  herself  only  to  him  who  seeks  for  her  alone. 
The  inconsiderate  and  "  unintentional  "  books  are  the  endur- 
ing books.  The  author  ought  not  even  to  think  of  the  good 
of  the  reader  but  only  of  the  subject  itself;  the  more  he  is 
wrapped  up  in  this,  the  better  he  will  write.  "  With  philosoph- 
ical  systems,"  the  old  Wandshecker  Bote  once  said,  "which 
are  invented  by  their  authors  for  others,  and  are  constructed 
as  fig  leaves  or  for  the  sake  of  controversy  or  for  show, 
sensible  people  will  have  nothing  to  do.  But  in  philoso- 
phers who  seek  for  light  and  truth  to  satisfy  their  own  needs, 
and  to  remove  the  load  of  untruth  oppressing  their  hearts, 
other  people  have  the  deepest  interest." 

So  far  the  philosophers  are  right.  The  politicians,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  right  in  this,  that  when  it  comes  to  imparting 
knowledge  by  instruction,  which  is  designed  for  particular 
persons,  we  must  be  guided  not  only  by  a  regard  for  the  sub- 
ject but  by  a  regard  for  the  person.  This  consideration  —  we 
may  call  it  the  pedagogical  consideration  —  may  prevent  the 
teacher  from  saying  everything  he  thinks,  and  from  saying 


VERACITY 


703 


what  he  thinks  just  as  he  thinks  it  in  his  own  mind.  We 
do  not  tell  the  simplest  experience  to  two  different  persons 
in  the  same  way;  we  take  into  account  the  person,  and 
govern  our  narrative  and  voice,  the  selection  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  facts,  accordingly.  How  could  we  speak  of 
greater  things,  how  could  we  speak  of  God  and  the  world,  to 
persons  of  different  age,  education,  inclinations,  and  views 
in  the  same  words  ?  It  is  the  same  history  of  mankind  which 
is  taught  in  the  Volksschule,  in  the  gymnasium,  and  the 
university;  and  yet  how  different  must  be  the  method  of 
treatment  in  order  that  it  may  be  good,  instructive,  and 
edifying  in  each  place.  The  same  also  applies  to  ultimate 
principles:  the  world  is  one  and  the  same,  and  so  is  the 
truth;  but  it  cannot  reflect  the  same  countenance  in  every 
mirror. 

What  is  true  of  the  teacher  in  the  school  is  true  also  of  the 
preacher  in  the  pulpit.     To  him,  too,  the  pedagogical  law  is 
applicable:  Discuss  the  truth  in  such  a  way  that  these  par- 
ticular hearers  before  you  may  be  instructed   and   edified 
thereby.     Let  us  suppose  that  his  congregation  lives  in  an 
out-of-the-way  village  on  the  moor,  to  which  not  even  the 
faintest  rumor  of  the  things  which  have  occurred  in  theology 
and  literature  during  the  last  hundred  years  has  penetrated, 
where  the  names  of  Strauss  and  Renan  are  as  little  known 
as  those  of   Kant   and  Schleiermacher.     Here  the  Bible  is 
still  accepted  in  the  literal  sense  as  the  word  of  God,  which 
has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  the  holy  men  to  whom  it  was 
entrusted.     Our  clergyman,  however,  has  been  convinced  by 
higher  criticism  that  the  Sacred  Scriptures  were  made  in  a 
very  human  way,  like  other  writings,  that  different  concep- 
tions, contradictions,  and  even  errors  are  contained  in  them, 
not  to  speak  of  the  uncertainties  of  tradition.     Ought  this  to 
keep  him  from  speaking  to  his  congregation  of  the  Bible  as 
the  word  of  God  ?     Or  ought  he,  for  example,  to  lecture  on 
the  results  of  higher  criticism,  in  order  to  free  them  of  their 


f 


704 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


5'  »■;. 


k 


time-honored  prejudices  and  errors  ?     What  would  he  accom- 
plish by  that  ?     If  he  succeeded  in  taking  from  the  peasants 
their  old  faith,  what  could  he  give  them  in  return  ?     Strauss 's 
Life  of  Christ  or  Kant's  Religion  within  the  Bounds  of  Mere 
Reason  ?    By  that,  he  would  simply  succeed  in  bringing  into 
contempt  the  only  book  which  hitherto  served  them  as  a  guide 
and  a  light,  as  a  poetical  pleasure  in  life  and  a  consolation 
in  death.     For  they  would  surely  be  apt  to  say,  in  case  they 
believed  him :  So,  then,  we  have  been  deceived  by  this  book ; 
we  thought   it  was  God's  word,  and  now  we  see  it  is  the 
word  of  man,  and  hence  we  had  better  cast  it  aside  and  read 
what  the  wise  men  of  to-day  write.     That  is  what  educated 
people  do :  they   accept  the  conclusion  of  criticism  that  the 
Bible  is  not  God's   word,  and  therefore   cease   reading   it. 
Hence  if  our  preacher  does  not  wish  that  to  happen,  if  he 
desires,   as  in  fact  he  does,  the  Bible  to  be  the  first,  the 
most  important,  nay,  perhaps  the  only  book  needed  by  his 
moor-peasants,  and  perhaps  also  by  other  human  beings, 
which  it  will  do  them  more  good  to  read  every  day  than  the 
most  widely-circulated  daily  newspaper  with  its  three  edi- 
tions a  day,  and  the  most  cultured  weekly  and  monthly  jour- 
nal besides :  if  he  believes  this,  he  will  without  scruple  and 
hesitation  speak  of  the  book  in  the  language  in  which  the 
peasants  on  the  moor  are  accustomed  to  hear  it  spoken  of. 
Is  he  telling  them  the  untruth  ?     What  does  it  mean  to  say 
that  the  Bible  is  God's  word  ?     Is  it  a  falsehood  ?     Is  it  a 
literary-historical  notice  like  the  statement  that  Gutzkow  is 
the  author  of  the  Magician  of  Rome  ?    No,  it  is  a  metaphor 
which  expresses  a  judgment  of  value  in  the  most  emphatic 
form.     It  means  that  its  contents  are  so  grand  and  true  that 
it  is  a  divine  book, and  comes  from  God.     The  same  preacher 
might,  if  he  were  transferred  to  different  surroundings  and 
now  had  to  speak  to  readers  of  Strauss  and  Kant,  change  his 
language  without  changing  his   view,  and  without  proving 
false  to  the  truth  in  either  case.     He  would,  entering  into 


VERACITY 


705 


their  conceptions,  say  to  them :  All  that  you  have  read  or 
heard  or  even  written  about  these  books  is  certainly  highly 
interesting,  and  some  of  it  perhaps  also  true.  But  now  for- 
get all  that  for  a  moment,  and  consider  with  me  what  is  said 
in  these  books,  which  originated  in  such  and  such  a  way. 
Very  serious  things  are  said,  it  seems  to  me,  —  things  which 
are  often  told  with  wonderful  and  unique  simplicity  and 
power ;  so  that  I  am  in  a  certain  sense  brought  back  to  the 
view  that  this  book,  like  no  other  book  in  the  world,  con- 
tains divine  words  and  a  revelation  of  God,  —  a  view  which 
Goethe  and  Herder  held,  whom  my  hearers  will  perhaps  be 
more  inclined  to  believe  in  these  matters  than  a  modern  the- 
ologian. —  If  to  build  up  (oUoBo/jLelp)  and  not  to  tear  down  is 
the  real  business  of  the  preacher  as  well  as  of  the  teacher,  he 
must,  it  seems  to  me,  take  this  position.  This  would  be,  as 
the  Apostle  says,  speaking  the  truth  in  love  and  not  in  anger 

The  same  preacher  might,  finally,  if,  as  a  scholar,  he  pub- 
lished philological-historical   investigations   of  the   sacred 
Scriptures,  also  speak  in  still  another  strain.     Here  he  would 
again,  in  order  to  fulfil  the  duty  of  veracity,  avoid  the  very 
thing  that  he  cannot  and  should  not  avoid  as  a  preacher, 
that  is,  accommodation  to  the  thoughts  and  language  of 
others.     And  he  would  likewise  avoid  the  attempts  at  concil- 
iation, the  makeshifts,  and  the  weak  excuses,  employed  to 
save  a  theory,  the  squinting  at  orthodoxy,  the  haggling  for 
the  truth,  the  circumvention  of  the  confession  that  a  thou- 
sand things  remain  riddles  to  him,  in  fact  everything  that 
makes  many  commentaries  on  the  Gospels  so  unbearable  to 
every  truthful  man.     Here,  indeed,  we  need  a  new  Luther 
who   will    make    short    work    of    the    commentaries    and 
controversies.  2 

1  Ephesians,  IV.,  15. 

2  Objections  have  been  raised  against  this  view.  A  sincere  and  truthful  nature, 
it  is  contended,  cannot  do  this.  I  confess  the  difficulty  without  controversy, 
but  I  believe  it  is  not  due  to  the  thing  itself  but  to  the  conditions  in  which  our 

45 


f 


706 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VERACITY 


From  this  point  of  view  the  duties  of  a  church  and  school 
administration  are  to  be  determined.  No  man  should  be  in- 
terfered with  in  his  calling  as  a  teacher  on  account  of  his 
dissenting  opinions,  but  only  on  the  ground  of  pedagogical 
blunders.  The  preacher  and  the  teacher  is  not  employed  as 
a  hireling  to  present  "correct"  views,  it  is  his  business  to 
express  his  faith,  his  convictions,  and  his  soul.  In  case  he 
exhibits  a  lack  of  skill,  he  should  receive  advice  from  the 
more  experienced ;  but  if  he  does  not  wish  to  accept  it  or 
cannot  understand  it,  he  must  choose  another  calling;  not 
everybody  is  called  to  preach  or  to  teach.  Nor  is  everybody 
qualified  to  criticise  another's  method  of  teaching,  surely  not 
one  whose  chief  claim  to  distinction  is  "  correctness  of  thought " 
and  an  ability  to  write  official  documents.     Harsh  attempts 

clergymen  find  themselves  placed  at  present.  If  the  village  were,  as  was  assamed, 
absolutely  isolated,  if  it  contained  only  the  peasants  with  their  faith  and  the 
clergyman  with  his  faith  and  his  knowledge,  one  diflBculty  would  still  remain  : 
how  are  people  to  understand  each  other  who  do  not  think  the  same  thoughts  ? 
But  the  moral  difficulty  would  not  exist.  The  latter  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
preacher  lives  in  an  environment  in  which  positions  and  promotions  are  open  to  the 
professors  of  the  creed,  whatever  may  be  their  real  attitude  to  it ;  a  proud  and 
upright  nature  may  find  it  impossible  to  tolerate  even  the  appearance  of  being  in- 
fluenced by  such  considerations.  And  besides,  where  shall  we  find  a  village  into 
which  the  disconnected  elements  of  the  new  ideas  have  not  been  carried,  say  by  a 
soldier  returning  home  from  the  capital  or  by  a  social-democratic  pamphlet  ? 
Under  such  circumstances  I  can  easily  understand  the  painfulness  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  I  am  far  from  blaming  a  man  who  cannot  endure  it  any  longer.  I 
simply  say :  A  man  can  assume  a  different  attitude  without  deserving  to  be 
accused  of  insincerity. — The  case  is  different  so  soon  as  he  is  asked  by  the 
people  :  Do  you  really  believe  that  God  is  the  author  of  the  Bible  ?  The  question 
suggests  doubt,  and  doubt  is  an  indication  of  a  desire  for  knowledge,  obscure 
though  it  may  be ;  and  this  calls  for  instruction,  instruction  in  the  real  history 
of  the  origin  of  the  Bible,  in  which  case  it  will  perhaps  be  discovered  that  this  is 
a  difficult  problem,  probably  much  more  difficult  than  the  inquirers  surmised. 
And  to  the  over-curious  he  may  reply  :  My  dear  friend,  if  you  would  keep  the 
word,  you  would  find  out  whether  it  was  of  God  or  not.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
repel  an  honest  doubter  would  be  to  prove  false  to  the  truth.  And  the  so  wide- 
spread distrust  of  the  clergy  and  their  sincerity  is  a  mortifying  proof  that  this 
has  often  been  done.  Nor  will  the  distrust  disappear  so  long  as  the  conditions 
continue  to  which  it  owes  its  origin  :  that  is,  so  long  as  the  good  positions  are 
given  to  those  who  know  how  to  profess  and  to  be  silent.  The  martyrs  had  no 
difficulty  in  convincing  men  of  the  genuineness  of  their  faith. 


707 


at  levelling  make  men  bitter  and  dull.     This  office  more 
than  any  other  requires  wisdom  and  self-control,  acuteness 
of  vision  and  leniency  of  judgment,  and,  above  all,  a  wealth 
of  knowledge  and  experience  with  respect  to  the  things  upon 
which  mental  power  depends,  to  enable  us  not  only  to  judge 
but  also  to  give  help.     Lichtenberg's  advice  is  admirable, 
and  all  those  who  belong  to  the  spiritual  regime  should  take 
it  to  heart  every  day:  "Train  your  mind  to  doubt  and  your 
heart  to  toleration. "     And  a  word  of  Goethe  ought  also  to 
be  borne  in  mind:  "If  older  persons  were  only  willing  to 
adopt  true  pedagogical  methods,  they  would  not  prohibit  a 
young  man  from  doing  what  gives  him  pleasure,  whatever  it 
may  be,  nor  set  him  against  it,  unless  they  could  at  the  same 
time  give  him  something  in  place  of  it. " 

Besides,  I  do  not  wish  to  hide  the  fact  that  we  have,  in 
my  opinion,  magnified  the  difficulties  existing  in  this  field 
in  a  manner  not  warranted  by  the  nature  of  the  case.     In  a 
certain  measure  public  instruction  will  always  be  behind  the 
times.     The  school  will,  in  the  main,  always  be  concerned 
with  transmitting  the  stock  of  recognized  truths.     Now  new 
truths  never  make  their  appearance  in  the  world  as  recog- 
nized truths,  but  as  heterodox  ones.     They  cannot,  even  for 
this  reason,  gain  admission  to  the  schools.     Then,  again,  the 
teachers  have,  for  the  most  part,  been  educated  by  the  older 
generation.     This  made  it  impossible   for   the    Copernican 
theory  to  become  a  branch  in  the  curriculum  of  the  sixteenth 
century;  nor  can  the  Darwinian  theory  gain  entrance  into 
the  schools  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  —  although  I  am  not  of 
the  opinion  that  the  teacher  who  desires  to  speak  of  it  and 
can  do  it  intelligently  and  tactfully  should  be  prohibited  from 
doing  so.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  much  wiser  that  a  learned 
and  reliable  man  should  point  out  the  significance  and  bear- 
ing of  the  new  conception,  which  has  spread  so  rapidly  and 
has  had  such  great  influence  upon  our  times,  than  that  we 
should  leave  the  matter  to  the  accidental  and  perhaps  very 


708 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


VERACITY 


709 


I 

u 


% 


inadequate  treatment  of  the  first  penny-a-liner  who  happens 
along. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  will  at  some  future  time  seem  very 
strange  that  our  age  has  so  placidly  adhered  to  a  system  of 
religious  instruction  which  arose  many  centuries  ago  under 
entirely  different  conditions  of  intellectual  life,  and  which 
is,  in  so  many  respects,  decidedly  opposed  to  the  facts  and 
ideas  which  are  regarded  as  firmly  established  outside  of  the 
school  and  church.  It  is  a  secret  to  no  one,  not  even  to  the 
pupils  of  our  gymnasia,  that  much  of  what  our  present 
religious  instruction  obliges  teachers  and  pupils  to  accept  as 
literal  truth  —  think  of  the  Old  Testament  —  is  not  regarded 
in  that  light  anywhere  in  the  world,  not  even  by  our  school 
directors  or  ministerial  councillors,  who  in  their  role  of 
supervisors  insist  upon  the  "  correctness "  of  the  teaching. 
Our  philological-historical  and  natural-scientific  investigators 
are  so  utterly  out  of  line  with  the  dogmatic  doctrine  of  our 
creed  that  they  pay  absolutely  no  attention  to  it,  that  they 
do  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  contradict  it.  And  everybody 
knows  how  little  the  great  poets  and  thinkers  of  the  epoch 
which  we  teach  our  pupils  to  regard  as  the  classic  age  of  our 
spiritual  life,  cared  for  the  teachings  of  the  church,  nay,  in 
part,  also  for  the  Christian  religion. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  religious  instruction  which 
overlooks  this  fact,  or  simply  mentions  it  in  order  to  deplore 
it  and  to  accuse  these  men  of  infidelity  and  perhaps  also  of 
frivolousness,  cannot,  as  a  rule,  produce  the  effects  which 
we  expect  and  desire:  appreciation  of  Christianity  as  an 
historical  phenomenon  and  reverence  for  its  founder.  If 
the  instruction  is  imparted  by  a  one-sided  young  theologian, 
who  has  great  faith  in  the  correctness  of  his  dogmatic  views, 
and  combines  with  this  little  capacity  for  guiding  souls,  the 
opposite  effect  is  apt  to  ensue :  distrust  and  aversion,  feelings 
which  spread  from  their  source  to  everything  connected 
with  it. 


A  book  recently  fell  into  my  hands  which  I  was  unable  to 
read  without  some  reluctance;  Max  Nordau's  Conventional 
Liea^  This  book  is  conspicuous  neither  for  its  literary  merit 
nor  for  the  depth  of  its  views;  it  is  not  even  amusing.  It 
contains  nothing  but  the  assurance,  a  hundred  times  repeated, 
that  our  entire  life  is  one  great  falsehood ;  religion  and  the 
church,  the  monarchy  and  the  parliament,  liberalism  and  con- 
servatism, marriage  and  the  family,  sociableness  and  society, 
—  everything  is  a  lie,  particularly  religion.  We  pretend  to 
regard  it  as  the  most  sacred  and  certain  thing,  while  in 
reality  it  is  the  most  indifferent  thing  to  us  in  the  world. 
This  book  has  passed  through  sixteen  editions  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years,  and  must  therefore  have  been  bought  and 
read.  I  asked  a  bookseller,  Who  reads  the  book  ?  and  re- 
ceived the  answer,  Why,  everybody.  That  means,  of  course, 
everybody  who  goes  to  the  book-store ;  that  is,  all  educated 
people,  all  those  who  have  attended  the  gymnasium  and  the 
university. 

We  may  think  what  we  choose  of  the  judgment  shown  by 
these  readers;  it  remains  a  highly  significant  fact  that 
such  a  book  has  met  with  such  success.  What  makes  the 
work  so  attractive  ?  I  can  discover  no  reason  for  it  except 
this,  that  it  declares  openly  and  forcibly  what  a  great  many 
of  its  readers  think  and  feel.  An  age  is  characterized  more 
by  the  books  which  it  reads  than  by  those  which  it  writes. 

And  this  book  of  Lies  docs  not  stand  alone ;  there  is  an 
entire  literature  which  deals  with  the  same  tlicme.  What 
attracted  the  readers  of  Strauss's  Old  and  New  Faith^  or 
Biichner's  Force  and  Matter,^  if  not  the  openness  with  which 
these  writers  repudiated  the  old  faith  ?  What  is  it  that  in- 
spires Diihring  and  Nietzsche  but  the  desire  to  unmask  false- 
hood.    What  impels  the  modern  novel  writers  and  dramatists 

1  Die  konventionellen  Liigen  der  Kulturmenschheit. 

*  Der  alte  und  neue  Glaube,  translated  by  M.  Blind. 

•  Translated  hy  CoUingswood. 


w 


710 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


w 


but  the  desire  to  analyze  the  falseness  and  the  inner  rottenness 
of  the  times,  and  to  expose  them  to  the  microscopic  gaze  of  the 
reader  ?     An  entire  literature  which  makes  a  business  of  un- 
masking falsehood,  —this,  beyond  doubt,  is  the  trait  which  the 
history  of  literature  of  a  later  age  will  regard  as  highly  charac- 
teristic  of  the  spirit  of  the  dying  nineteenth  century.  That  the 
conflict  between  what  we  really  think  and  believe,  and  what 
we  teach  our  youth  to  say  or  to  believe  in  our  church  and 
school  instruction,  is  partially  to  blame  for  this,  no  one  who 
has  eyes  to  see  will  deny.     In  almost  every  life  this  reaction 
appears   sooner  or  later,  with  more  or  less  violence ;    and 
since  it  usually  happens  at  an  age  which  other  conditions 
also  help  to  make  critical,  it  often  leads  to  a  serious  crisis 
in  which  many  a  young  man  receives  permanent  injury,  and 
many  a  one  is  ruined  for  life.    With  the  church  faith,  moral- 
ity  becomes  an  object  of  suspicion,  and  the  enlightenment 
leads  to  an  ostensible  repudiation  of  morality.     When  indo- 
lence,  regard  for  others,   or  cowardice  keeps  others  from 
professing  their  thoughts,  or  from  confessing  their  doubts 
to  themselves,  hypocrisy  or  inner  falsehood  utterly  destroys 

the  moral  life.^ 

I  see  but  one  way  out  of  this  difficulty.  During  the  for- 
tics  and  the  fifties  many  indulged  in  the  hope  that  the  conflict 
might  be  overcome  by  a  more  rigorous  use  of  authority  in 
favor  of  the  old  orthodoxy.  Even  governments,  in  a  large 
measure,  followed  the   advice  that  science  be  forced  to  a 

1  Fr.  Jodl  admirably  points  out  the  danger  in  a  thoughtful  lecture  on  the 
Nature  and  Aims  of  the  Ethical  Movement  in  Germany  (1893)  [Wesen  vnd 
Ziele  der  ethischen  Bewegung  in  Deutschland] :  «  Year  after  yenr  the  highest  and 
most  sacred  things,  ethical  convictions  and  ideals,  are  imparted  to  the  younger 
generation,  mixed  with  dogmatic  propositions,  which  absolutely  contradict  the 
mental  tendency  which  all  other  forces  in  life  and  education  aim  to  deveh>p. 
And  thus  a  double  evil  is  eternally  produced  which- like  a  cancer  eats  away  our 
spiritual  life :  inwardly  the  ethical  principles  and  ideals  break  down  with  the 
weak  supports  to  which  they  have  been  artificially  attaclied.  outwardly  they  are 
adhered  to,  often  with  conscious  hypocrisy,  on  account  of  the  attitude  of  the 
state.  Religion  becomes  the  state  dress  for  our  Byzantinism.  behind  which  inter- 
nal  shallowness,  nay,  rottenness,  with  difficulty  conceals  itself." 


\\ 


VERACITY 


711 


change  of  front,  or  at  least  that  instruction  be  governed,  so 
far  as  possible,  by  the  old  formulae.  The  result  is  apparent : 
they  have  thereby  created  these  readers  of  the  literature  men- 
tioned above.  Hence  only  one  way  is  left :  to  accommodate 
the  church  dogma  to  the  theoretical  thoughts  and  conceptions 
which  are  possible  to  our  time.  In  this  way  Christianity 
would  not  be  given  up  as  a  practical  life-principle,  but  freed 
from  bonds  which  impede  its  progress.  What  robs  the  Gos- 
pel of  its  efficacy  in  our  times  is  its  amalgamation  with  the 
old  church  dogma.  If  it  were  offered  us  as  something  purely 
human  and  historical,  it  would  even  now  move  the  hearts  of 
men.  The  formulae  of  the  longer  and  shorter  catechisms 
stifle  and  kill  it. 

It  looks  as  if  this  view  were  making  some  headway  within 
theological   circles,  at  least  upon  Protestant  soil.     If  the 
movement  were  to  lead  to  a  real  and  permanent  peace  be- 
tween  religion  and  science,  I  should  regard  it  as  a  blessing 
for  the  European  nations.     Nations  cannot  live  without  re- 
ligion; religion,  however,  cannot  live  permanently  if  it  is 
in  conflict  with  philosophy  and  science.     But  the  possibility 
of  the  peace  lies  in  the  direction  in  which  Kant  sought  it 
and  believed  himself  to  have  found  it  a  hundred  years  ago. 
Let  scientific  research  proceed  as  far  as  possible  upon  her 
course,  regardless  of  the  objections  of  the  dogma ;  the  entire 
historical  and  natural  realm  is  absolutely  open  to  her  investi- 
gations.   But  the  relation  of  the  human  mind  to  reality  is 
not  exhausted  by  scientific  knowledge.    It  cannot  help  con- 
structing thoughts  concerning  the  meaning  of  the  whole; 
these  thoughts,  however,  are  not  a  matter  of  demonstration, 
like  physical  theories  or  historical  facts;  they  are  based 
upon  the  soul's  participation  in  things,  upon  the  selective 
judgment  of  value ;  they  rest  upon  the  volitional  side  of  man's 
nature.     In  their  unity  they  make  up  the  faith  of  the  human 
soul.     There  will  therefore  be  unity  of  faith  between  all 
those  who  recognize  the  same  highest  good.     But  the  dogma, 


m 


712 


DOCTRINE  OF  VIRTUES  AND  DUTIES 


as  the  formula  of  the  faith,  would  be  an  expression  of  the 
conception  of  reality  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  highest 
good.  A  dogma  in  this  sense  could  never  come  in  conflict 
with  science,  because  it  would  never  make  any  assertions 
concerning  that  aspect  of  things  which  is  accessible  to 
science.     It  would  bind  the  will,  but  not  the  understanding. 


INDEX 


[The  letter  n.  stands  for  note, 
ant  places.] 


Asterisks  are  inserted  to  assist  the  reader  in  finding  import* 


Abbott,  194  n.  2,  222  n.  1,  224  n.  1,  321 

n.  1,  584  n.  1. 

Advice,  686. 

^schylus,  411. 

^Esthetics,  19. 

Albee,  185  n.  2,  n.  3. 

Alexander,  S.,  193. 

Almsgiving,  642  ff. 

Altruism     and    egoism,    379  *    fi. ;    how 
judged  morally,  391  fF. 

Ambition,  574  ff. 

Ambrose,  76,  170  ♦  f . 

Amor  Dei,  Spinoza's,  183. 

Anaxagoras,  59. 

Angelus  Silesius,  441. 

Anselm,  120  f. 

Anthropology,  2. 

Antiquity  contrasted  with  Middle  Ages, 
119  ff. 

Anzengruber,  375  n.  1. 

Apocalj'pse,  105. 

A  priori  method  in  ethics,  6  ff. 

Aristotle,  39  n.  1,  60,  224,  251  n.  1,  257, 
273  ff.,  374,  407  n.  1,  426,  430  f .,  454  n.  2, 
475  n.  1,  478,  483  n.  1,  495,  534,  536  n.  1, 
569  n.  1,  599  n.  1;  his  detinition  of 
ethics,  1 ;  his  ethical  system,  48  *  ff. ; 
his  conception  of  ethics  as  a  practical 
science,  25  ;  his  conception  of  highest 
good,  36  f. ;  and  Spinoza,  52 ;  his  con- 
ception of  the  tragedy,  263  f. 

Arnold,  M.,  288. 

Art,  283,  432,  556  *  ff. ;  affectation  of,  560 
f. ;  its  effects  on  human  soul,  558  f. ;  and 
life,  559  ff.;  in  Middle  Ages,  125,  562; 
modem,  563  ff.;  foreign  elements  in 
modem,  563  ff. 

Asceticism,  488*  ff.;  in  Greek  and  Chris- 
tian ethics,  167  ff.;  Jesus's  attitude 
towards,  93  ff. ;  in  Middle  Ages,  119  f , 
171  f. ;  in  Plato,  47  f. ;  and  Reformation, 
132  f.  I 


Atheism,  425,  430. 

Athletics,  519  ff.,  526. 

Atomism  and  religion,  423  ff. 

Auerbach,  B.,  306. 

Aufklarung,  28,  40,  140  f. 

Augustine,  32,  321  n.  1,  454  n.  3,487;  his 

ethical  system,  171*;  his  conception  of 

evil,  332;  his  conception  of  virtues,  69; 

and  Luther,  131. 
Authoritativeness   of    conscience,  342  ff., 

363  ff. 
Avarice,  530  ff. 

Bacon,  379  n.   1,  GD5;   on  atheism,  430; 
on  causalitv,  6  f. ;   his  modern  ideals, 
137  *  ff. 
Bad,   321*  ff.;  defiuition  of  the,  248  f.; 

good  and,  222  ff. 
Baer,  507  n.  1. 
Bain,  192*  n.  1,  251  n.  1,  253  n.  1,  340 

n.  1,  346  n.  1,  379  n.  1. 
Baldwin,  253  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  341  n.  1,  343 

n.  1,  405  n.  1,  452  n.  1. 
Barbarian  conception  of  life,  37  ff. ;  con- 
trasted with  Greek  and  Christian  ideals, 
167  ff. 
Barratt,  192  *  n.  1,  251  n.  1. 
Bauraann,  215  n.  1,  452  n.  1. 
Baumgartner,  592  n.  2. 
Baur,  65  n.  1,  98  n.  1. 
Bayle,  327  n.  1. 
Beccuria,  his  theory  of  capital  punishment, 

611. 
Beneficence,  596  ff. 

Benevolence,  592*  ff.,  599,  638*  ff.,  664. 
Bentham,  190  *,  223,  251  n.  1,  340  n.  1, 

354,  380  n.  4,  382,  606  n.  1. 
Berner,  610,  631  f. 
Bestmano,  65  n.  1. 
Bias  of  Priene,  336. 
Bildung,  554  f. 
Bismarck,  531. 


714 


INDEX 


INDEX 


715 


Blackie,  483  n.  2. 

Blind,  90  n.  5,  709  n.  2. 

Bluntschli,  262  n.  1,  550. 

Bodily  life,  605  ff. 

Bowne,  193  *  n.  1, 416  n.  1, 599  n.  1, 606  n.  1. 

Bowring,  190  n.  1 . 

Bradley,  193  *  n.  1,  227  n.  1,  251  n.  1,  350 

n.  1. 
Brentano,  340  n.  1. 
Brillat-Savarin,  506  n.  1. 
Brinckmann,  324  n.  1. 
Biichner,  709. 
Buckle,  136  f. 
Buddha,  114  f. 

Buddhism  and  Christianity,  114  f. 
Buhle,  147  n.  1. 

Burckhardt,  111,  127  n.  1,  128,  372. 
Butler,  340  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  699. 
Byron,  303,  444  n.  1. 

Calderwood,  35  n.  1,  192*  n.  4, 340  n.  1. 

Calling,  530  «E. 

Culumuy,  669  f. 

Calvin,  454  n.  4;  on  free-will,  455. 

Campe,  484  n.  2. 

Capital,  533  ff. 

Capital  punishment,  611  f. 

Cardinal  virtues,  45. 

Carlyle,  375, 697 ;  his  conception  of  highest 
good,  263  ;  his  conception  of  evil,  331  n. 
1;  his  estimate  of  suicide,  588  n.  1. 

Carrl^re,  127  n.  1,  215  n.  1. 

Carus,  P.,  114  n.  1. 

Cassian,  85  f. 

Catholic  ethics,  169  ff. 

Catholicism,  125  n.  1, 136,  160  f.,  169  ff. 

Cathrein,  215  n.  1. 

Causality  and  free-will,  460  n.  1. 

Celsus,  his  criticism  of  Christianity,  98  f. 

Certainty  of  moral  law,  356  ff. 

Chamfort,  523. 

Chamisso,  413. 

Character,   influence  of  prosperity  upon, 
407  ff. 

Charity,  638  ff.;  Christian,  83  f.,  157  n.  1.; 
in  Middle  Ages,  124. 

Charity-craze,  646  ff. 

Charlemagne,  118. 

Christianity,  157  ff.,  402,  613  ff.,  638  ff. ; 
and  Buddhism,  114  f . ;  and  charity,  83 
f. ;  and  courage,  69  ff. ;  and  earthly 
goods,  87  ff. ;  and  family-life,  84  ff. ; 
and  honor,  78  f. ;  and  humility,  79 ;  and 
immortality,  444  f. ;  and  justice,  613  ff. ; 
and  knowledge,  67  f. ;  and  liberality,  82; 
and  miracles,  435  ff.;  and  the  modern 
spirit,  155  ff. ;  its  moral  ideal,  65  ff. ; 
contrasted  with  barbarian  ideal,  167,  ff., 


with  Buddhism,  114  f .,  with  Greek  ideal, 
65  ff .,  with  other  ideals,  33  ff. ;  Nietz- 
sche's criticism  of,  150  ff.;  and  pessi- 
mism, 405  f.;  and  pity,  81  f . ;  and 
pleasure,  74  f.;  and  Romans,  98  ff.;  and 
self-esteem,  81  f. ;  and  silence,  76 ;  and  the 
sUte,  72  ff. ;  its  triumph,  112  ff. ;  and  the 
Greek  virtues,  67  ff.;  and  wealth,  77  f. 
Chrvsostom,  646. 
Church,  116  ff.,  123  ff.,  126,  131  f.,  409, 

436,  682  ff.,  700  ff. 
Christianization  of  antiquity,  98  ff. ;  of  the 

Germans,  117  ff. 
Cicero,  47,  53  n.  1,  56  n.  1. 
Civilization,  and  art,  559  ff. ;  Christianity 
and,  91  ff.;  and  morality,  314 ff.;  and 
success,  314  ff. ;  and  wars,  395  ff . 
Clarke,  192*  340  n.  1. 
Classical  education  and  patriotism,  661  f. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  77. 
Clergy,  119  f.,  132,  689. 
Clothing,  517  ff. 
Cohen,  194  n.  1. 
Coit,  415  n.  l,447n.  1. 
Collingwood,  709  n.  3. 
Columbus,  673. 
Comenius,  95. 

Compassion,  592*  ff.;  Christian,  81  f. 
Compulsion  in  law,  604  ff. 
Comte,  48  n.  1,  191 ;  and  altruism,  379  f. 
Confidence,  66G  f . 

Conscience,  340*  ff . ;  authority  of,  363  ff. ; 
individualization  of,  368  ff. ;  infallibility 
of,  357  ff. ;  origin  of,  340  ff. ;   its  tran- 
scendent sanction,  366  f . ;  Kant's  theory 
of,  350  ff . ;  Shaftesbury's  view  of,  186  ff. ; 
Socrates  and,  371  n.  1. ;  utility  of,  232  f. 
Conservatism  and  liberalism,  690  ff. 
Conversion,  of  Germans  to  Christianity  and 
antiquity,   563    ff.;  of   Old    World    to 
Christianity  98  ff. 
Coulanges,  Fustel  de,  416  n.  1. 
Courage,  484  f .,  495*  ff. ;  Greek  and  Chris- 
tian   estimates   of,    contrasted,  69    ff.; 
Plato's  conception  of,  45. 
Cowardice, 495  ff.;  668 f. 
Creed,  religion  and,  434  ff. 
Crime,  charity  and,  652  ff . ;  poverty  and, 

541  n.  1. 
Criminal  characters,  371  ff. 
Crispin,  228  f. 
Criticism,  higher,  703  ff. 
Cruelty,  648  ff. 
Cudworth,  192*  340  n.  1. 
Culture,  543  ff. 

Culture-religions  and  religions  of  redemp- 
tion, 163  ff. 
Cumberland,  185*,  379  n.  1. 


Cupidity,  491  ff. 

Custom  and  duty,  343*  ff.;  and  instinct,  8 

f.;  law,  morality,  and  religion,  415  ff.; 

and  will,  343  ff. 
Cynics,  109. 
CjTenaics,  251  n.  1. 


Dante,  48  n  1. 

Darwin,  251  n.  1,  274  f.,  340  n.  1,  344  n. 
2,  379  n.  1,  433;  his  ethical  theory, 
192  *  f . ;  his  theory  of  conscience,  341  f. 
David  of  Augsburg,  688  n.  1. 
Death,  335  *  ff. ;  Epicurus's  attitude  to- 
wards, 57  f. ;  Greek  and  Christian  con- 
ceptions of,  67. 

Deception,  664  ff. 

Democritus,  56  n.  2,  251  n.  1. 

Descartes  and  the  modern  spirit,  140  ff. 

Desire,  impulse,  and  will,  220  f. 

Determinism,  452  ff. 

Dewe.v,  193  *  n.  1. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  53  f.,  56  n.  1,  277  n.  2, 
337  n.  1. 

Diplomacy,  675  ff. 

Discretion,  687. 

Dishonor,  573. 

Disposition  of  agent  and  worth  of  act, 
224  ff. 

Distrust,  666  ff. 

During,  215  n.  1. 

Dorner,  A.,  29  n.  1,  122  n.  1,  215  n.  1, 
475  n.  1,  483  n.  1,  505  n.  1,  529  n.  1, 
509  n.  1,  599  n.  1,  638  n.  1,  664  n.  1. 

Dorner,  [.  A.,  179. 

Dostoievski,  375  n.  1. 

Dress,  517  ff. 

Drobisch,  464  n.  1. 

Drunkenness,  479,  507  *  ff.,  590. 

Duhr,  239  n.  1. 

Diihring,  215  n.  1,  584  n.  1. 

Duncker,  114  n.  1. 

Duns  Scotus,  454  n.  4. 

DUrer,  his  conception  of  art,  558  n.  1. 

Duties,  47i;  ff. 

Duty  and  Conscience,  340  *  ff. ;  and  cus- 
tom, 343  f . ;  and  inclination,  346  ff. ;  and 
merit,  377  f. 

Dwelling,  515  ff. 

ECKERMANN,  431,  580. 

Economic  life,  529  ff. ;  virtues,  536  ff. 

Education,  543  ff.;  bodily,  505  ff.;  intel- 
lectual, 543  ff.;  moral,' 476  ff.,  483  ff., 
498  ;  religious,  708  ff. 

Effects  of  acts  and  disposition  of  agent, 
224  ff. 

Egoism,  criticism  of,  244  ff. 

Egoism  and  altruism,  244  ff.,  379  *  ff . ;  how 


judged  moralh',  391  ff.;  in  Hobbes  and 
Spinoza,     380;     in    Shaftesbury    and 
Hutcheson,  186. 
Einjahrigenschein,  551  f. 
Eliot,  George,  90  n.  5,  305. 
Emerson,  522. 

Empiricism  and  rationalism  in  ethics,  6  ff. 
End  justifies  the  means,  233  ff. 
Ends  and  means,  253  ff.,  275  ff. 
Enemy,  love  of,  616  ff. 
Energism,  223  f.,  251  *  ff.,  270  ff. 
Enlightenment,  28,  40,  146  f.,  336,  554; 

ethical  conceptions  of,  201  f. 
Ennui,  532. 

Epictetus,  55,  62,  106*  f.,  493,  501,  624. 
Epicureans,  587. 
Epicurus,  56  *  ff.,  251  n.  1 ;  his  conception 

of  philosophy,  61. 
Equality,  624  ff. 
Equanimity,  500  ff. 
Equity,  616  ff. 
Equivocation,  665. 
Erasmus  and  Luther,  131. 
Erdraann,  J.  E.,  35  n.  1,  519  n.  1. 
Error,  harmfulness  of,  699  f. 
Essenes,  109. 

Ethics,  aesthetics  and,  19 ;  Aristotle's  con- 
ception   of,    1;    Christian,    33   f.,    167, 
169  ff. ;  definition  of,  1  ff.;  function  of, 
4  ff. ;  Greek,  33  ff. ;  Greek  conception  of, 
1;    history    of,   33  ff. ;    intuitional  and 
teleological,   222  ff.;  media;val,  169  ff.; 
metaphysics  and,  44  f .;  method  of,  6  ff. ; 
modern,   179  ff.;    natural   science   and, 
6  ff. ;    nature  of,   1  ff.;  as  a  practical 
science,  1  ff . ;  practical  value  of,  25  ff . ; 
relation  of,   to  ps^'chology  and  anthro- 
pology,  2;  rationalistic  and  empirical, 
6ff.;  theological,  169  ff. 
Ethical  societies,  483  n.  2. 
Ethical  virtues,  Greek  and  Christian  con- 
ceptions of,  contrasted,  68  f. 
Eudi£monia,  36  ff.;  Aristotle's  comcption 

of,  49;  Stoic  conception  of,  54. 
Eudsemonism,  194  ff.,  251  ff. 
Eucken,  17  n.  1,  35  n.  1. 
Eutuchia  and  eudaemonia,  407  ff. 
Everett,  475  n.  1. 
Evil,  321  *  ff. ;  physical  and  moral,  322  ff.; 

responsibility  and,  461  f. 
Evolution,   278;    egoism,    altruism    and, 

394  ff. ;  ethics  and,  214  f. 
Evolutional  ethics,  192  f. 
Evolutionistic  view  of  conscience,  364  f. 
Examinations,  549  f. 
Exercise,  519  ff. 
Expediency  and  truth,  672  ff. 
Extravagance,  536  ff. 


no 


INDEX 


Faith  and  creed,  434  ff.;  and  life,  421  ff. 

Falsehood,  664  ff. 

Fame,  569  ff. 

Family-life    and    primitive    Christianity, 

84  ff. 
Famil\'-rights,  634. 
Fashion,  518  f. 
Faultfinding,  650  f.,  687. 
Faust,  408  f. ;  and  conscience,  372. 
Fechner,  339  n.  1,  427. 
Feeling,   as  source  of  moral  knowledge, 

11  f.;  and  will,  221. 
Fetichism,  417  f. 
Feuchtersieben,  483  n.  2. 
Fichte,  J.  G.,  340  n.  1,  353,  483  n.  1;  his 

altruism,  380  n.  2 ;  and  the  lie  of  neces- 
sity, 673  f. 
Fichte,  J.  H.,  179  n.  3. 
Fischer,  K.,  127  n.  1, 179  n.  3. 
Fisher,  65  n.  1,  98  n.  1. 
Flattery,  670,  681. 
Forgiveness,  616  ff. 
Formal  and  material  judgments  of  acts, 

227  ff. 
Forster,  194  n.  1. 
Fouill<ie,  179  n.  3,  452  n.  1. 
Fowler.   185  n.  2;  and  Wilson,  192  n.  1, 

251  n.  1,  452  n.  1,  475  n.  1,  483  n.  1, 

505  n.  1,  529  n.  1,  569  n.  1,  592  n.  1, 

599  n.  1. 
Francke,  A  H.,  80,  305. 
Franklin,  484  n.  2. 
Frederick  the  Great,  588;  his  pessimism, 

300. 
Freedom    and    causality,    460    n.   1.;    of 

teaching,  706  f. ;  of  thought,  698  ff.;  of 

the  will,  452  ff. 
Free-mindedness,  577  f. 
Free-will,  452  ff. 
Freytag,  306. 

Friedliiuder,  98  n.  1, 101  ff.,  523. 
Frugnlity,  536  ff. 
Fullerton,  181  n.  2. 

Galileo  and  Hobbes,  179  f . 
Galitzin,  Princess,  82. 
Gallwitz,  215  n.  1,  222  n.  1. 
Gass,  65  n.  1,  74  n.  2,  171  n.  1,  340  n.  1. 
Geiger,  127  n.  1. 
Geldart,  90  n.  3. 
Gellert,  199. 
Gellius,  252  n.  1. 
General  culture,  547  ff. 
Gerhardt,  Paul,  161. 
German  ethics,  193  ff. 
Gilman,  N.  P.,  475  n.  1. 
Gizycki,  179  n.  3, 185  n.  2,  189,  251  n.  1, 
415  n.  1;  his  criticism  of  Paulsen's  ener- 


gisra,  283  ff.;  his  criticism  of  Paulsen's 
conception  of  religion  and  morality, 
446  ff. 

Gladiators  at  Rome,  103  ff. 

Gliickseligkeit,  37  ff. 

Gluttony,  506  f. 

God,  43, 160  f.,  219,  282, 428  ff.,  436,  442  f. ; 
as  the  highest  good,  282  f . ;  Kingdom  of, 
280,  318. 

Goethe,  308,  320,  333,  335,  355,  371  n.  1, 
402,  410,  425,  430  ff.,  483  n.  2.  552,  554, 
568.  579  f.,  594  f.,  658,  680,  705,707;  and 
Christianity,  164;  his  conception  of  evil, 
328  ff. ;  his  ideal,  201  f. ;  his  optimism, 
301  f. 

Good,  and  bad,  222*  ff.;  definition  of, 
248  f. ;  the  highest,  251  ff. 

Goods,  doctrine  of,  4. 

Gordon,  C.  G.,  503  n.  1. 

Gothenburg  system,  512. 

Gotthelf,  J.,  302. 

Gracchus,  Cains,  103. 

Gratitude,  655  f. 

Greek  art,  561  f.;  Greek,  barbarian,  and 
Christian  conceptions  contrasted,  167  ff.  ; 
Greek  and  Christian  conceptions  con- 
trasted, 65  ff. ;  Greek  and  Christian  spirit, 
163  ff. ;  Greek  civilization  and  Middle 
Ages,  121;  Greek  ethics,  33  ff.;  Greek 
ethics,  summary'  of,  58  ff. 

Green,  T.  H.,  189  n.  3,  193  *,  251  n.  1, 
452  n.  1. 

Gregory  of  Tours,  142  f . 

Guhrauer,  145  n.  1. 

GurA%  his  theological  system  of  ethics, 
17*3  ff. 

Guyau,  179  n.  3,  364  n.  2. 

Gwinner,  210  n.  1. 

Gymnastics,  519  ff. 

Habit,  ethical  importance  of,  241  f. 

Habitation,  515  ff. 

Haldane  and  Kemp,  209  n.  1. 

Hamann,  164. 

Hameriing,  326. 

Hamlet,  his  pessimism,  307  n.  1,  335. 

Happiness,  270*  ff.;  Aristotle's  conception 
of,  49  ff.;  Greek  and  Christian  concep- 
tions of,  169  f.  ;  its  influence  on  char- 
acter, 407  *ff.;  Spinoza's  conception  of, 
183  f.;  Stoics'  conception  of,  54  f.;  vir. 
tueand,  400*  ff. 

Harnack,  65  n.  1,  488  n.  1.;  his  estimate 
of  Catholicism,  125  n.  1. 

Harris,  394  n.  1. 

Hartlev,  380  n.  4. 

Flartmann,  215  n.  1,  288  n.  2,  584  n.  1. 

Hasbach,  327  n.  1. 


INDEX 


717 


Hase,  68  n.  1;  his  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus,  89  ff. 

Hatch,  185  n.  4. 

Haurc^au,  169  n.  1. 

Health,  383,  506  ff. 

Heartlessness,  648  ff. 

Hedonism,  261  *  ff.  ;  criticism  of,  251  ff. ; 
and  energism,  223. 

Hedonistic  pessimism,  289  ff. 

Hedonists,  251  n.  1. 

Hegel,  204  f.,  274,  426  ;  his  theory-  of  pun- 
ishment, 606  f. 

Hegesias,  257  n.  1. 

Hehn,  v.,  514  n.  1,  595  n.  2. 

Ueliand,  119. 

Helvetius,  380  n.  4. 

Herbart,  232,  259,  340  n.  1;  his  ethics, 
208  *f. 

Herder,  189,  554,  668,  705. 

Herodotus,  1,  37  ff. 

Hesiod,  his  pessimism,  309,  404  f. 

Hettner,  147  n.  1. 

Highest  good,  17  ff.,  270*  ff.;  how  known, 
10  ff. 

High-mindedness,  579. 

Hilty,  483  n.  2. 

Hippocrates,  366. 

Hirscher,  178. 

History,  optimistic  view  of,  329  ff . ;  pessi- 
mistic view  of,  318  ff. ;  philosophy  of, 
18,  281,  308  ff.,  318  ff. 

Hobbes,  185,  244,  274,  340  n.  1,  401,  624; 
his  determinism,  455  f.;  his  egoism,  380; 
his  ethical  system,  179  *ff.;  and  Galileo, 
179  f.;  his  pessimism,  298;  his  political 
system,  143*  f.,  180  f. ;  and  Shaftesbury, 
188. 

Hodgson,  192  n.  1. 

Hoffding,  29  n.  1,  215  n.  1,  222  n.  1,  253 
n.  1, 275  n.  3,  321  n.  1,  340  n.  1, 341  n.  1, 
343  u.  1,  379  n.  1,  415  n.  1,  505  n.  1, 
569  n.  1,  543  n.  1,  584  n.  1,  606  n.  1, 
627  n.  1,  638  n.  1,  664  n.  1. 

Holbach,  380  n.  4. 

Holland,  599  n.  1. 

Honor,  569*  ff.,  635;  Greek  and  Christian 
estimates  of,  78  f.;  and  love  of  honor, 
569  ff. ;  its  teleology,  571  ff. 

Hufeland,  506. 

Hugo,  v.,  611  n.  2. 

Humanists  and  Luther,  130  f. 

Humanity,  idea  of,  280  ff. ;  love  of,  656  ff. 

Humboldt,  W.  von,  164,  413  f. 

Hume,  251  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  402, 
426,  460  n.  1.;  his  ethics,  189  f.;  on 
suicide,  584  n.  1,  587  f. 

Humilitv,  573*  ff.;  Greek  and  Christian 
estimate  of,  79. 


Hutcheson,  186,  199,  228  n.  1,  251  n.  1, 

340  n.  1,  379  n.  1. 
Huxley,  192  n.  4,  394  n.  1,  556. 
Hyde,  475  n.  1. 
Hypocrisy,  670. 
Hyslop,  29  n.  1,  35  n.  1, 189  n.  3, 251  n.  1, 

340  n.  1,  415  n.  1,  452  n.  1,  599  n.  1. 

Ideal,  in  conscience,  368  ff. ;  of  life,  270  ff. 

Idealism  and  materialism,  422  ff. 

Ideals,   Greek    and  Christian  contrasted, 

87  ff.  ;  history  of,  273  ff. 
Idleness,  530  ff. 

Ignorance,  stupidity  and,  549  ff. 
Ihering,  see  Jhering. 
Ill-humor,  500  ff. 
Imitation,  242  f. 
Immortality,  belief  in,  419  f. ;  ethics  and, 

439  *  ff. 
Impudence,  581. 

Impulse,  343  ff.  ;  desire  and  will,  220  f. 
Impulses  and  virtues,  475  ff. 
Inclination,    346   ff. ;   and   duty,   340  ff.  , 

criticism  of  Kantian  view  of,  350  ff. 
Independence  of  character,  498. 
Indifferent  goods,  55. 
Indiscretion,  687. 
Individualism,  134  f.,  308  ff.;  during  the 

Renaissance,    129  ;   and    Universalism, 

243  ff. 
Individualization  of  conscience,  368  ff. 
Infallibility  of  conscience,  357  ff. 
Infidelity  and  morality,  421  ff. 
Ingratitude,  655  f. 
Injustice,  602  ff. 
Innovations,  690  ff. 
Insanity,  moral,  376  n.  1. 
Insolence,  581. 

Instinct  and  custom,  8  f .,  343  ff. 
Instruction,  547  ff. 
Intellect,  58  ff.,  67  ff.,  266  ff.,  543  ff. 
Intellectual  activity  in  Middle  Ages,  120  f. 
Intellectual  life,  278  f. 
Intelligence,  relation  of,  to  feelings,  266  ff. 
Intemperance,  485  ff. 
Intentional  deception,  672  ff. 
Intolerance,  635  ff. 
Intoxication,  507  ff. 
Intuitionalism,  192  ;  criticism  of,  350  *ff.; 

and  utilitarianism,  222  ff. 

Jacobins,  658. 

Jahn,  525. 

James,  253  n.  1,  343  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  452  n.  1, 

544  n.  1,  569  n.  1. 
Janet,  35  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  350  n.  1,  415  n.  1. 
Jesuits,  169  ff.,  233  ff.,  2r,9. 
Jesus,  326,  330,  334,  410,  420,  619, 05)7 ;  and 


718 


INDEX 


INDEX 


719 


asceticism,  93  ff. ;  and  Buddha,  115 ;  and 
conscience,  370  f . ;  different  conceptions 
of  his  character,  89  f . ;  his  love  of  nature, 
165. 

Jewish-Greek  philosophy,  109. 

Jhering,  71,  215  n.  1,  222  n.  1,  275  n.  3, 
340  n.  1,  380  n.  1,  517  n.  3,  529  n.  1, 
541  n.  1,  569  n.  1,  599  n.  1,  610,  615  f., 
664  n.  1. 

Job,  410. 

Jodl,  35  n.  1,  179  n.  3,  204,  253  n.  1,  341 
n.  1,  452  n.  1,  710  n.  1. 

John  the  Baptist,  66. 

Jonas,  205  n.  2. 

Jowett,  41  n.  1,  531  n.  1. 

Judas,  77  ;  moral  estimate  of  his  suicide, 
591. 

Julian,  82,  159. 

Justice,  599*  ff. ;  Greek  and  Christian 
opinion  of,  71  f . ;  in  Middle  Ages,  123  f . ; 
negative  side  of,  599  ff.  ;  in  New  Testa- 
ment, 613  ff. ;  Plato's  conception  of,  45  f . ; 
positive  side  of,  602  ff.;  teleology  of, 
602  ff. 

Kamt,  222  n.  1,  223,  227  n.  1,  251  n.  1, 
259,  274,  320  n.  1,  321  n.  1,  325,  328, 
340  n.  1,  420,  426,  431,  456,  584  n.  1, 
600  f.,  664  n.  1;  criticism  of,  350  ff. ;  and 
English  ethics,  194;  his  ethics,  194  *  ff.; 
his  estimate  of  falsehood,  666 ;  his  con- 
ception of  immortality,  440  ff. ;  and  the 
lie  of  necessity,  673;  his  pessimism,  298; 
his  theory  of  punishment,  606,  of  capital 
punishment,  611 ;  his  rigorism,  23  f . ;  and 
Rousseau,  198  ff.;  and  utilitarianism, 
198  ff. 

Keim,  98 ;  his  conception  of  the  character 
of  Jesus,  90. 

Keller,  122  n.  1. 

Kcmpis,  Thomas  k,  177,  681  n.  1. 

Kepler,  576,  684. 

Kern,  337  n.  1. 

Kidd,  394  n.  1. 

Kierkegaard,  122  n.  1. 

Knowledge,  543  *  ff. ;  and  conduct,  61  f. ; 
development  of,  543  f . ;  Greek  and  Chris- 
tian estimate  of,  67  f . ;  of  self)  579  ff . ; 
value  of,  545  ff. 

Kostlin,  35  n.  1,  56  n.  2. 

Krafft-Ebing,  376  n.  1,  508  n.  1. 

Kreibig,  373  n.  1. 

Kuelpe,  452  n.  1. 

Laas,  42  n.  1,  215  n.  1. 

Labor,  529 ;  Greek  estimate  of,  62  n.  1. 

La  Bruv^re,  380  n.  4. 

Ladd,  253  n.  1,  341  n.  1,  343  n.  1, 452  n.  1. 


Lagarde,  P.,  155,  483  n.  2. 

Lamettrie,  380  n.  4. 

Lange,  F.  A.,  his  view  of  Christianity, 
162  f. 

Laotsee,  474. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  380  n.  4,  593,  655;  his 
pessimism,  298. 

Laspeyres,  517  n.  1. 

Law,  morality  and,  627  ff.;  morality,  reli- 
gion, and,  415  ff. 

Law-suit,  Christian  conception  of  the,  72. 

Lear,  581. 

Lecky,  65  n.  1,  85  f.,  98  n.  1, 109, 179  n.  3, 
251  n.  1,  222  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  488  n.  1,  584 
n.  1,  587  n.  1,  638  n.  1. 

Lehrfreiheit,  706  ff. 

Leibniz,  274,  321  n.  1,  401,  426,  456,  460 
n.  1,  684;  his  conception  of  evil,  332; 
and  the  modem  spirit,  144  f. 

Leo  X.,  129. 

Leopardi,  h's  pessimism,  287. 

Lessing,  320  n.  1,  483  n.  2,  696. 

Lex  divina  and  lex  naturae,  172  f.,  178. 

Liberalism  and  conservatism,  690  ff. 

Liberality,  Greek  and  Christian  estimates 
of,  contrasted,  82  ff. 

Lichtenberg,  707. 

Lie  of  necessity,  672  •  ff. ;  Greek  view  of, 
682  f. ;  modem  view  of,  682  ff. 

Lies,  664  ff. 

Life,  an  end  in  itself,  294  ff. 

Liszt,  Fr.,  610. 

Locke,  251  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  486,  533. 

Locrians,  665,  695. 

Lombroso,  446,  481  n.  1. 

Long,  55  n.  1. 

Lotze,  193  n.  1,  233,  426,  460  n.  1  ;  his 
criticism  of  Schleiermacher,  208. 

Louis  XIV.,  272. 

Love,  638  *  ff. ;  of  country,  656  ff . ;  of  ene- 
mv,  616  ff. ;  of  home,  656  ff. ;  of  humanity, 
656  ff . ;  of  neighbor,  699,  638  *  ff. ;  tele- 
ology of,  652  ff. ;  of  truth,  689  f . 

Lubbock,  523. 

Lucian,  62  n.  1. 

Lucretius,  56  n.  1,  57  f. 

Luthardt,  35  n.  1,  65  n.  1. 

Luther,  121, 129  ff.,  420,  577,  658,  668;  on 
free-will,  455. 

Luxuries,  538  ff. 

Lying,  664  *  ff. ;  why  wrong,  666  ff. 

Mackenzie,  29  n.  1,  193  *  251  n.  1,  320 
n.  1,  350  n.  1, 379  n.  1,  415  n.  1, 452  n.  1, 
599  n.  1. 

Mackintosh,  179  n.  3. 

Magnanimity,  616  ff. 

Magnificence,  83. 


Mainlandcr,  288  a.  2,  584  n.  1. 

Malice,  648  ff. 

Mandeville,  189,  327  n.  1,  380  n.  4. 

Manichseans,  332. 

Manual  training,  526  f. 

Manzoni,  490. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  106,  107  ff.,  218,  411;  his 
estimate  of  Christianity,  100. 

Marion,  29  n.  1. 

Marriage,  Christian  view  of,  86  f. 

Martensen,  179,  437,  674. 

Martineau,  35  n.  1, 192  n.  4,  222  n.  1, 224 
n.  1,  227  n.  1,  251  n.  1, 340  n.  1,  342  n.  2, 
452  n.  1. 

Martius,  510  n.  1. 

l^Iartvrdom,  690  ff. ;  necessity  of,  in  history, 
095  f. 

Masar^'k,  584  n.  1. 

[Materialism  and  idealism,  422  ff. 

Maxwell,  185  n.  3. 

Meal,  506. 

Means  and  ends,  275  ff. 

Mediaeval  conception  of  life,  116  ff.;  eth- 
ics, 169  ff. 

Menander,  410. 

Menoikeus,  56. 

Menzies,  65  n.  1. 

Mephistopheles  and  evil,  328  ff. 

Merit  and  duty,  377  ff. 

Metaphysics,  morality  and,  421  ff. ;  Paul- 
sen's, 219  ff. 

Metropolis,  influence  of,  on  mode  of  life, 
491,  519  ff. 

Meyr,  M.,  290. 

Middle  Ages,  21  f. ;  their  conception  of  life, 
116  *  ff.;  ethical  systems  of,  169  ♦  ff. 

Middleman,  127  n.  1. 

Mill,  James,  190  *  f.,  251  n.  1,  340  n.  1;  on 
pleasure  and  desire,  254  f. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  191  *  f.,  222  n.  1,  223,  251  n.  1, 
275,  340  n.  1,  354,  379  n.  1, 427,  599  n.  1 ; 
his  optimism,  316  f. 

Milton,  his  conception  of  art,  558  n.  1. 

Miracles,  religion  and,  435  ff.;  science  and, 
435  ff. 

Modern  ethics,  179  ff. 

Modesty,  491  ff.,  581  ff. 

Moeser,  612. 

Monasticism,  85,  100,  116  f.,  119  ff.,  133, 
168,  488  ff. 

Monotheism,  418  f . 

Moral  evil  and  physical  evil,  322  *  ff.; 
moral  insanitv,  376  n.  1,  481;  moral  in- 
struction, 25  'ff.,  40  f .,  476  ff.,  483  ff., 
4QS;  moral  law  and  natural  law,  13  ff., 
225  f.,  348  f.,  362  f .,  376,  448  f. ;  moral 
laws  not  strictly  universal,  19  ff.,  233  ff., 
357  ff. ;  nihilism,  373  ff . ;  moral  preach- 


ing, 23  f.,  47,  55,  478  ff.,  489  f.;  moral 

training,  476  ff . ;  moral  philosophy,  see 

Ethics. 
Moralistic  pessimism,  297  ff. 
Morality,  law  aud,  627  ff.;    metaphysics 
^nd,  421  ff.;   religion    and,  415  ff.;  of 

Rome,  101  ff. 
More,  Thomas,  his  Utopia,  588  n.  1. 
Morley,  J.,  664  n.  1. 
Morselli,  584  ff. 
Moses,  614. 
Motives,  egoistic  and  altruistic,  381  ff . ;  and 

morality  of  acts,  227  ff. 
Muirhead,  29  n.  I,  193  ♦  n.  1,  251  n.  1,  321 

n.  1,  350  n.  1. 
Munro,  56  n.  1. 

Munsterberg,  29  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  452  n.  1. 
Murray,  251  n.  1. 

Natioxalism  in  Middle  Ages,  124. 

Natural  law  and  moral  law,  13  ff. 

Natural  rights,  624  ff. 

Naturalism  and  supernaturalism,  165  f. 

Necessity,  lie  of,  672  ff.;  law  of,  631  f. 

Neo-Platonists,  589 ;  precursors  of,  109. 

Neo-Pythagoreans,  109. 

Nero,  ioo. 

Neumann,  17  n.  1. 

New  truths,  reception  of,  690  ff. 

Nibelungenlied  and  Iliad,  119. 

Nietzsche,  28,  47,  65,  371  n.  1,  606  n.  1, 
664  n.  1 ;  and  Christianity,  150  ff. ;  his 
egoism,  380;  his  immoralism,  150  ff. ;  his 
influence  on  young,  153  ff. 

Nihilism,  mora'l,  373  ff. ;  theoretical,  424. 

Noack,  474. 

Nordau,  373  n.  1,  664  n.  1,  709. 

Notrecht,  632  f. 

Nova  Atlantis,  Bacon's,  137  ff. 

Nutrition,  506  ff. 

Oaths,  671. 

Objective  and  subjective  morality,  370  ff. 

(Edipus,  411. 

Oettingen,  215  n.  1,  515  n.  1,  529  n.  1, 
643  n.  1,  584  n.  1,  606  n.  1,  638  n.  1. 

Old  age,  113  £.,  296  f.,  335,  443;  and  pes- 
simism, 309. 

Oldenberg,  114  n.  1. 

Optimism,  182,  301*  ff.,  321*  ff.,  400  ff.; 
in  age  of  enlightenment,  146  f . 

Orderliness,  499. 

Oriental  religions  in  Rome,  111  f. 

Orthodoxy,  670. 

Overbeck,  124  n.  1. 

Over-education,  549  ff. 

Pain,  as  motive,  257  ff. ;  function  of, 
264  f. ;  and  pleasure,  291  ff. 


720 


INDEX 


Paley,  192*  n.  1,  251  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  380  n. 
4,  483  n.  1,  529  n.  1,  684  n.  1,  699  n.  1, 

638  n.  1. 

Partisanship,  239,  601  f. 

Patience,  499  f. 

Patriotism,  656  ff. ;  in  education,  660  ff. 

Paul,  614 ;  and  justice,  72 ;  his  conception  of 
life,  66  f. ;  his  doctrine  of  love,  651;  his 
opinion  of  marriage,  86  f . ;  his  pessimism, 
405 ;  and  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  75. 

Paulsen,  321  n.  1,  415  n.  2,  460  n.  1,  545 

n.  1. 
Peck,  106  n.  1. 
Penal  right,  604. 
Penzig,  453  n.  1. 
Perfection,  4,  10  ff.,  17  ff.,  201  f.,  223  f., 

251  ff.,  270  *  ff..  Stoic  idea  of,  64. 
Perjury,  670  f. 
Perseverance,  498  f. 
Personal  liberty,  635;  and  drunkenness, 

507  ff. 
Personality,  468. 
Perthes,  645  n.  1. 
Pertz,  670  n.  1. 
Peschel,  127  n.  1. 

Pessimism,  210,  246  f.,  287*  ff.,  402  ff.; 
criticism  of,  148  ff.;  in  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 147  ff. 
Pestalozzi,  240. 
Petrarch,  his  character,  213  f. 
Petronius,  102. 
Pfaffentum,  122. 
Philo,  109. 

Philosophy,  369,  542  ff.,  545;  and  ethics 
among  the  Greeks,  58  ff.;    of  history, 
pessimistic  view  of,  308  ff. ;  in  Roman 
Empire,  109  f. 
Physical  culture,  505  ff. 
Pitv,  692*  ff.;  Christian,  81  f. 
Pla'to,  39  n.  1,  251  n.  1,  273,  279,  371  f., 
373  n.  1,  426,  531  f.,  682;  and  asceticism, 
47  f.;  his  ethics,  41*  ff.;  his  politics,  46 
ff.;    and  schoolmen,  43;  and  Sophists, 

42  f. 

Play,  487,  519  ff.,  556  ff. 

Pleasure,  as  end  of  life,  251  *  ff. ;  as  un- 
conscious end  of  action,  255  ff.  ;  Chris- 
tian conception  of,  75  f.;  Epicurus's  con- 
ception of,  56  ff. ;  as  freedom  from  pain, 
291  ff.;  function  and  significance  of, 
265  f. ;  our  judgment  of,  as  absolute  end, 
268  ff.;  Luther's  conception  of,  130; 
Paul's  conception  of,  75;  Plato's  con- 
ception of,  47  f.;  Stoic  conception  of, 

54. 

Pleasure-theory,  251  ff. 

Plotinus,  109,  321  n.  1. 
Pliimacher,  287  n.  1. 


Poetr\%  in  Middle  Ages,  118  f. 

Politeness,  648  ff.,  680  f. 

Political  life  and  Greek  ethics,  62  ff. 

Politics,  143  f. 

Pollock,  415  n.  1. 

Polycrates,  412. 

Polj'theism,  418. 

Pontius  Pilate,  300. 

Porter,  192*  n.  4, 194  n.  1,  478  n.  1,  483 
n.  3,  505  u.  1,  629  n.  1,  543  n.  1,  509  n.  1, 
584  n.  1,  592  n.  1,  599  n.  1,  638  n.  1, 

664  n.  1. 

Positive  right,  603  ff.;  teleological  neces- 
sity of,  603  ff. 
Positivism  and  religion,  446  ff. 
Poverty,  crime  and,  541  n.  1;  and  the 

economic  virtues,  540  ff. 
Practical  knowledge,  543  f. 
Practical  value  of  ethics,  25  ff. 
Practice  and  theory,  1  ff. 
Preaching  the  truth,  702  ff. 
Predestination,  455. 
Pride,  573  f. ;  Greek  and  Christian  estimates 

of,  79  f. 
Primary  school,  548. 

Primitive  Christianity  and  mediaeval  Chris- 
tianity, 121  ff. 

Private  right,  604. 

Procrastination,  499. 

Prodigality,  536  ff. 

Profession,  530  ff. 

Professional  education,  547  ff. 

Proletarianisra,  530. 

Property  rights,  634  f . 

Prosperity  and  virtue,  400  f. 

Protagoras,  40. 

Protestant  ethics,  178  f . 

Prudence  and  virtue,  40  f. 

Pudor,  581. 

Punishment,  606  *ff.;  intuitionalistic  view 

of,   606  f.;  and  responsibility,  460  ff.; 

teleological  view  of,  607  ff. 
Pusillanimity,  578  ff. 


Quietism,  332  ff. 

Ransom,  90  n.  3. 

Rationalism,  empiricism   and,   in    ethics, 

6  ff.;  and  the  Reformation,  134  f. 
Rationalistic  view  of  conscience,  445  ff. 
Realism  in  literature,  303  ff. 
Reason,  181  ff.,  277  f.,  468  ff. ;  as  source  of 

moral  knowledge,  11  f.;   and  impulse, 

476  ff. 
Recreation,  527  f. 
llee,  215  n.  1,  340  n.  1,  364. 
Reformation,   126*  ff.;    and  church  life, 

131  ff.;  and  civilization,  130  ff.;  and 


INDEX 


721 


rationalism,  134  f.;    and   Renaissance, 

difference  between,  130  ff. 
Regulus,  247. 
Religion,  60  ff.,  113  ff.;  and  art,  429,  558; 

and  miracles,  435  ff. ;  and  morality,  161, 

345  f.,  415*  ff.,  492;  nature  of,  417  ff., 

431  ff.,  and  science,  431  ff. 
Religious  instruction,  126  ff.,  708  ff. 
Remorse,  240,  340,  620  f. 
Renaissance,  126  *  ff.,  558,  563  ff. 
Renan,  178;  his  conception  of  the  character 

of  Jesus,  90  f . 
Responsibility,  460  ff. 
Rest,  527  f . 

Retaliation,  242  f.,  616  ff. 
Reuschle,  576  n.  1,  684. 
Renter,  Fritz,  his  optimism,  302  f. 
Revenge,  impulse  of,  619  f. 
Reverence,  431  ff. 
Reviewers,  582  f.,  623  f.,  665. 
Revolution,  690  f. 
Richter,  303. 
Riehl,  452  n.  1. 
Rights,  599,  603  *  ff . ;  natural,  624  ff. ;  the 

principle  of,  624  ff.;  the  different  spheres 

of,  633  ff. 
Ritchie,  599  n.  1. 
Rolph,  257  n.  1. 
Roman  Empire,  523  f.;  conversion  of,  to 

Christianity,  100  ff. 
Roman  morals,  101  ff. 
Romans,  483  n.  3. 
Romanticism,  310. 
Rothe,  178. 
Rousseau,  202,  340  n.    1,  480,  505  n.  1, 

656;   Kant  and,    108   ff.;    his  practice 

and  his  preaching,  214;  his  pessimism, 

148,  314  ff.;  his  philosophy  of  history, 

309. 
Rousselot,  169  n.  1. 
Kuckert,  313  n.  1,  355,  481,  696. 
Runze,  29  n.  1,  215  n.  1,  321  n.  1, 415  n.  1, 

475  n.  1*  480  n.  1,  483  n.  1,  505  n.  1, 

519  n.  1,  529  n.  1,   640  n.  1,  543  n.  1, 

569  n  1,  584  n.  1,  592  n.  1,  599  n.  1,  606 

n.  1,  638  n.  1,  664  n.  1. 
Rupprecht,  517  n.  1. 
Russia,  523. 

Sacraments,  66  f. 

Sacrifice,  388  f.;  Christian,  159  f.;  teleolo- 
gical explanation  of,  247  f. 
Sailer,  178. 
Saints,  85,  166,  178. 
Salter,  483  n.  2. 
Sand,  230. 

Santayana,  251  n.  1,  519  n.  1. 
bardanapalus,  39,  375. 


Satiety  of  life,  171,  376. 

Savonarola,  84;  Villari's  Life  of,  97  n.  1. 

Schadenfreude,  593  f. 

Schelling,  310. 

Schiller,  355;  his  relation  to  Kant,  202  f.; 
his  ridicule  of  Kant's  rigorism,  351  ff. 

Schleiermacher,  178,  274;  his  ethical  sys- 
tem, 205  *  ff. ;  his  view  of  capital  punish- 
ment, 611 ;  his  conception  of  moral  law 
as  natural  law,  17  n.  1. 

Schmidt  L.,  35  n.  1,  58,  371  n.  1,  400,  496, 
579,  587  n.  1,  665,  671. 

Scholasticism,  120  f.,  454  f. 

School,  function  of.  547  ff. 

Schoolmen  and  Plato,  43. 

Schopenhauer,  209  *  ff.,  257  n.  1,  420,  478, 
569  n.  1,  580,  584  n.  1.  589,  682,  700; 
his  altruism,  379  ff. ;  and  Buddhism,  115; 
his  character,  211  ff. ;  and  Christianity-, 
164;  on  compassion,  598;  on  egoism,  246 
f.;  on  free-will,  453;  his  pessimism, 
147  ff.,  287  ff.;  his  practice  and  his 
preaching,  210  ff. ;  on  the  practical  value 
of  ethics,  25  f. 

Schremph,  122  n.  1. 

Schuppe,  215  n.  1. 

Schurman,  29  n.  1,  192  n.  5, 194  n.  1,  342 
n.  1,  415  n.  1. 

Schwarz,  340  n.  1. 

Schweinichen,  510. 

Schweitzer,  205  n.  2. 

Science,  Bacon  and,  137  ff . ;  Christian  and 
modern  estimates  of,  136  ff.;  function 
of,  543  ff.;  religion  and,  431  ff.;  theism 
and,  425  ff . ;  classified  as  theoretical  and 
practical,  1  ff. 

Secondary  school,  548. 

Secularization  of  Christianity,  121  ff. 

Seidlitz,  583. 

Selby-Bigge,  189  n.  3. 

Self-conceit,  see  Vanity. 

Self-control,  483  *  ff. ;  Greek  admiration 
of,    483    n.   2;    Plato's    conception   of, 

45. 
Self-education,  468  f.,  477  f. 
Selfishness,  648  ff. 
Self-knowledge,  579  ff. 
Self-preservation,   179  ff.,   185,  248,   271, 

380,  388,  5G9. 
Self-sacrifice,  247  f .,  338  f. 
Seneca,  100,  106  *,  523,  587  n.  2. 
Semi-refinement,  semi-culture,  549  ff. 
Sense  of  justice,  002. 
Sense-perception,  266  f  ,  543  f . 
Servile-mindedness,  577  f. 
Seth,  J.,  29  n.  1,  35  n.  1,  193  *  n.  1,  251 

n.  1,  415  n.  1,  452  n.  1,  485  n.  1,  543  n. 

1,  592  n.  1,  599  n.  1. 


722 


INDEX 


J. 


Shaftesbury,  274,  340  n.  1;  379  n.  1,  402. 

Shakespeare,  307  n.  1,  669. 

Shamanism,  417  f. 

Sidgwick,  29  n.  1,  35  n.  1,  193  *,  222  n.  1, 
251  n.  1,  256  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  452  n.  1,  459 
n.  1,  475  n.  1,  483  n.  1, 592  n.  1, 599  n.  1, 
638  n.  1,  664  n.  1 ;  on  conscience,  368. 

Sigwart,  215  n.  1,  452  n.  1. 

Silence,  Christian  injunction  of,  76. 

Siramel,  29  n.  1, 215  n.  1, 251  n.  1,  340  n.  1, 
379  n.  1. 

Sin,  (Christian  conception  of,  158  f. 

Sincerity,  689  ff.,  705  n.  2. 

Sitte,  343  ff. 

Slander,  669  f. 

Slavery,  in  Middle  Ages  124. 

Smvth,  179  *  n.  2,  340  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  415 
n.  1,  483  n.  3,  543  n.  1,  599  n.  1, 664  n.  1. 

Sneath,  179  n.  4. 

Social  virtues,  278  f . ;  and  evolution,  394  ff . 

Socrates,  51  f.,  326,  411,  682;  his  con- 
science, 371  n.  1;  his  ethics,  39*  ff.; 
and  Sophists,  40. 

Soldan,  142. 

Solon  and  Croesus,  37  ff. 

Sommer,  287  n.  1. 

Sophists,  40  ff.,  373  n.  1;  and  Plato,  42  f. ; 
and  Socrates,  40. 

trio4>pO(TVVT),  483  fl^. 

Specialism,  religion  and,  434. 
Speculative  Philosophy,  204  ff.,  429. 
Speech,  Christian  estimate  of,  76. 
Spencer,  1,  71  n.  1,  193  *,  249  n.  1,  507  n. 

2,  340  n.  1,  346  n.  1,  379  n.  1,  427,  483  n. 

1,  485  n.   1,  506  n.  1,  519  n.  1,  529  n. 

1,  543  n.  1,  592  n.  1,  599  n.  1,  638  n.  1, 

664  n.  1 ;  on  egoism  and  altruism,  395  ff. 
Spener,  420. 
Spinoza,  274,  307,  354,  384,  401,  406,  426, 

428,   598,  606  n.  1,  619 ;  and  Aristotle, 

52;  his  egoism,  380;  his  ethical  system, 

181  *  ff . ;    his  conception  of  evil,  332 ; 

on  free-will,  456. 
Spiritual  life  and  culture,  543  ff. 
State,  church  and,  in  Middle  Ages,  120 ; 

Greek  and  Christian  estimates  of,  72  ff. ; 

modern  theory  of,  143  f . 
Statius,  104. 
Stiiudlin,  584  n.  1. 
Stein,  Freiherr  von,  577,  669. 
Steiner,  371  n.  1. 

Steinthal,  215  n.  1,  259,  415  n.  1,  452  n.  1. 
Stephen,  29  n.  1,  179  n.  3,  193  *,  222  n.  1, 

233  n.  1,  275  n.  1,  340  n.  1,   379  n.  1, 

452  n.  1,  485  n.  1,  495  n.  1,  592  n.  1,  599 

n.  1,  664  n.  1. 
Sterrett,  205  n.  1,  607  n.  1. 
Stirner,  373  n.  1. 


Stockl,  169  n.  1. 

Stoics,  273,  321  n.  1,  492  ff.,  587,  698,  682 ; 
their  ethical  system,  53*ff.;  their  con- 
ception of  goods,  277 ;  Roman,  106  ff . 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  483  n.  2. 

Strauss,  709 ;  his  conception  of  character 
of  Jesus,  90  n.  5,  91  f. ;  his  opinion  of 
Christianity,  156. 

Striimpell,  481  n.  1. 

Stupidity,  ignorance  and,  549  ff. 

Subjective  and  objective  judgments  of 
acts,  227  ff. 

Subjective  morality,  370  ff. 

Success  and  virtue,  400  fF. 

Suffering,  163  f.,  259  ff.,  321  ff.,  410  ff. ; 
Christian  notion  of,  157  f. 

Suicide,  584  *  ff.;  causes  of,  590  ff.;  civili- 
zation and,  584  ff. ;  how  judged  morally, 
586  ff. 

Sully,  287  n.  1,  341  n.  1,  343  n.  1,  452  n.  I. 

Sulzer,  300. 

Superciliousness,  578  ff. 

Supernaturalism  and  naturalism,  165  f. 

Superstition,  435. 

Symonds,  127  n.  1. 

Sympathetic  pain  and  pleasure,  593  ff. 

Sympathy,  248,  278,  592  *  ff.,  638  ff. 

Taine,  299. 

Taylor,  B.,  328  n.  1,  329  n.  1,  n.  2,  n.  3. 

Taylor,  T.,  599  n.  1. 

Tedium,  532. 

Teleological  and  intuitionalistic  ethics, 
222  ff. 

Temperance,  484  *  ff. ;  Greek  and  Christian 
conceptions  of,  contrasted,  74  ff. 

Tenement-houses,  516  f. 

Tertullian,  117,  121;  his  estimate  of  cour- 
age, 70 :  on  temporal  power,  74. 

Thackeray,  304. 

Theatre  in  Rome,  105  f. 

Theism,  422  f . 

Themistocles,  his  suicide,  588  ff. 

Theodicy,  321*  ff. 

Theognis,  407  n.  1. 

Theological  ethics,  169  ff. 

Theology  and  free-will,  454  f. 

Theoretical  knowledge,  545  ff. 

Theories  of  life,  33  ff. 

Theory  and  practice,  1  ff. 

Thillv,  35  n.  1,  219  n.  1,  415  n.  2,  452  n.  1. 

Thomas  Aquinas,  273  f.,  431,  454  n.  3. 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  490  n.  1,  681  n.  1. 

Thucydides,  154  n.  1. 

Tille,  151  n.  1. 

Tipping,  541. 

Tobacco,  513  ff. 

Tunnies,  179  n.  4,  215  n.  1,  590  n.  1. 


INDEX 


723 


I 


Toleration,  635  ff. 

Tolstoi,  122  n.  1,  514  f.,  524  f. 

Trajan,  97, 104. 

Tranquilitas  animi,  Spinoza's,  183. 

Transcendent,  161  ff.,  447  f. 

Truth,  664*  ff. ;  and  expediency,  672  ff. 

Truthfulness,  664  ff. 

Turg^'nev,  373  n.  1. 

Twesten,  205  n.  2. 

vPpii,  407  f.,  411,  579. 
Uebermensch,  152  f. 
Ueberweg,  35  n.  1, 162  f. 
Uhlhorn,  74  n.  2, 103,  157  n.  1,  646. 
Uniform,  518. 
Universal  morality,  19  ff. 
University,  548. 
Unpretendingness,  491  ff. 
Utilitarianism,  191  f.,  222  ff. 
Utopias,  137  ff.,  143  f. 

Valentin  I,  541  n.  1,  652  n.  1,  671  n.  1. 

Vanity,  574  ff. 

Vegetarianism,  515. 

Veitch,  142  n.  1. 

Veracity,  664*  ff. ;  among  the  Greeks, 
682 ;  among  the  modems,  682  f . ;  nega- 
tive, 664  ff. ;  positive,  685  ff. 

Villari,  97  n.  1. 

Vilmar,  371  n.  1. 

Virtue,  Aristotle's  definition  of,  52;  and 
happiness  or  success,  400  ff.;  can  it  be 
taught  ?  40  f.,  478  ff.;  and  vice,  249. 

Virtues,  475  *  ff. ;  classification  of,  481  f . ; 
Greek  and  Christian  estimate  of,  68  f. ; 
and  vices,  475  fl^. 

Voight,  127  n.  1,  213  f. 

Volksschule,  548. 

Voltaire,  376. 

Vorlander,  179  n.  3. 

Wackernagkl,  686  n.  1. 
Waitz,  416. 
War,  395  ff.,  675. 
Ward,  454  n.  1. 
Watson,  35  n.  1. 

Wealth,  Christian  estimate  of,  77  f.;  and 
the  economic  virtues,  540  ff. 


Weariness  of  life,  171,  376. 

Weber,  A.,  35  n.  1,  48  a.  1,  56  u.  1,  324 

n.  1. 
Weber,  W.,  114  n.  1. 
Weinholdt,  119. 

Welfare,  4  f.,  10  ff.,  223  f.,  251  ff. 
Welldon,  36  n.  1. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  549. 
Whewell,  179  n.  8,  192  *. 
White,  181  n.  2. 
Wieland,  261  ff. 
Wiese,  475  n.  1,  683. 
Will,  custom  and,  343  ff.;  education  of, 

483  ff. ;  and  feeling,   221;    freedom   of, 

452  ff. ;  impulse,  and  desire,  220  f . ;  and 

intellect,  220  f.;  Schopenhauer's  theory 

of,  292  f . 
Williams,   179  n.   3,  275  n.  3,  320  n.  1, 

379  n.  1. 
Wilson,  see  Fowler  and  Wilson. 
Windelband,  35  n.  1. 
Wisdom,  45,  503  f. 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  438. 
Wolff,  Christian,    401,   456;    his  ethical 

system,  193  *  f . 
Woman,  disposition  of,  499,  598;  education 

of,  522  ff. 
Women's  rights,  625  f. 
Work,  Greek  estimate  of,  62  ff . ;  and  play, 

519  ff. 
Wundt,  29  n.  1,  35  n.  1,  204,  215  n.  1, 

222  n.  1,  275  n.  3,  340  n.  1,  344  n.  1, 

415  n.  1,  416  n.  1,  452  n.  1,  505  n.  1, 

506,  529  n.  1,  543  n.  1,  569  n.  1,  592  n.  1, 

599  n.  1,  606  n.  1,  638  n.  1. 

Xenophon,  37  n.  1. 

YoNGE,  56  n.  3. 
York,  General,  361  f. 

Zeller,  35  n.  1, 109,  194  n.  1,  215  n.  1. 

Ziegler,  H.,  98  n.  1. 

Ziegler,  T.,  35  n.  1,  65  n.  1,  215  n.  1,  275 

n.  3. 
Zollner,  365  n.  1. 
Zola,  508  n.  1. 


*  I' 


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